


Trust None of What You See (And Less of What You Hear)

by sparrowshellcat



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, The Covenant (2006), The Last Witchhunter, xXx (2002)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Big Bang Challenge, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-13
Updated: 2011-10-13
Packaged: 2017-10-24 14:13:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/264364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrowshellcat/pseuds/sparrowshellcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Winchester has no idea that he hasn't been hunting a yellow eyed demon at all - his wife could have told him what he was really hunting, but she never told him that she was a vampire, so how was he supposed to know that she was caught up in the middle of a vampire war?</p><p>There are three factions within the vampire world - the undead Brujah, the witch Haxons, and the Nightshades, who feed only on other vampires and are the last thing that stands between the Brujahs and Haxons wiping out the human race. The only problem is, the Nightshades are extinct - or so the other vampires think. It's just a war that some people get caught up in, but for the Winchester family it's about to become a whole lot more complicated - because within the span of a week, John, Dean and Sam each end up a member of different warring factions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust None of What You See (And Less of What You Hear)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for Vampire Big Bang 2011. Many thanks go to iria4285 and inferiarecoming for supporting me with mixes and art!
> 
> I do not own any of the fandoms included in this fic, and they are used without permission, though without profit. (In case you haven't hear of the Last Witchhunter, the ideas from this planned movie, still in Pre-Production, were what really sparked the idea for this story. I'm really hoping the movie gets made, or I'll look silly, having written fanfiction for it, already!)
> 
> \---
> 
> For more fic and art, you can follow me on Tumblr! [sparrowshellcat](http://sparrowshellcat.tumblr.com)

John Winchester had no idea he wasn't looking for a demon.  
Not exactly.  
The thing that had killed his wife and burned his house down and somehow tainted his baby boy with blood wasn't a demon like he thought it was. It was a Brujah, one of those once-alive, now-undead vampires, but of course John didn't know that.  
If he'd known what lies his wife had been hiding from him, before his death, it would have made perfect sense.  
But she never told him she was a Nightshade, did she?

\---

Sam was way too excited about going to a new school.  
Dean leaned back in his seat, feet propped up on the table, arms crossed as he watched his little brother flitter around the kitchen like some kind of butterfly in a suit. He didn't know why the hell Sam was so excited. The school had uniforms, after all, and weren't uniforms the bane of high school students everywhere? He remembered the Catholic high school they'd been stuck at for about four months a few years back, and he'd hated the scratchy sweaters and ties, but Sam was literally bouncing around the kitchen, and he looked thrilled, uniforms and all.  
“Watch out, kiddo, or your feet are gonna float off the ground.”  
He laughed, and grinned over his shoulder at Dean. “Never know.”  
“Why are you so excited, anyway?” He snorted. “You're just going to another new school. Again.”  
Sam headed over to the table, sitting in the seat around the corner from Dean, and setting his bowl of brightly coloured cereal on the table. He ran his palm down the front of his tie, smoothing it out, and beamed as he dug into his cereal. “Dean, Spencer's is amazing. There is no other high school on the entire eastern seaboard with as good a reputation!”  
“Is that good?” He smirked, then quickly tugged his feet off the edge of the table, swinging them down to sit up properly when John pushed the front door open and stepped into the house.  
“Dean, seventy percent of the graduating students from this school got to one of the top five Ivey league schools!” Sam pointed at Dean with his spoon, barely even seeming to notice that John was there. “No other school has that record!”  
“And that's good?” Dean smirked.  
Sam swatted at him, but he was laughing. He looked happy. Dean would move mountains if he could, to make sure Sam stayed that happy. “It's a really good school, Dean!”  
“Better be, for the amount of money I had to pay to get you in there,” John smirked, sitting down across from Dean at the kitchen table, a mug of coffee in hand. He looked as rough and worn as he always did, but he was smiling. He looked happy for once. Dean couldn't blame him, not really. After all, for once, Sammy wasn't fighting with him, or yelling at him, or acting like a passive aggressive little bitch, he was laughing and smiling and giving his dad the look he used to, when he was a kid, and John was still Superman to his sons. “You got all your books and stuff?”  
He nodded, quickly. “Yeah. This is a great school, dad, it really is, they got it all worked out for me, too. I’m gonna be taking twelfth grade classes this year, even though I had to repeat that year and all, but if I do it the way they've set it out, I’m gonna graduate next year with amazing courses.”  
“Oh yeah?” He drawled. He just looked amused by Sam's eagerness.  
“Yeah! Look!” He scrambled up to grab the backpack by the door, and dug in it, tugging out a slightly wrinkled piece of paper, thrusting it at John, all smiles. “Look, Greek, and Latin, and mythology of North America... those courses will totally help, right?”  
John snorted. “Don't you already read Latin and Greek?”  
“Well, yeah, but that means it's an easy A.” He grinned, and tugged the paper back, shoving it in his backpack again. Sam was all but bouncing. “Please dad, say we can stay here so I can finish school?”  
“We'll see.” He smirked.  
Dean had never seen John so willing to consider that possibility before. Usually, John answered that he didn't know, that they didn't exactly live the kind of life where they could stay somewhere for a year. But he was willing to accept the idea, because good god, Sammy was happy for once.  
“So what are we doing here, anyway?” Dean spoke up, clearing his throat.  
John glanced at him. “Witches.”  
He blinked at him. “Witches. I think we're in the wrong town then, ain't we? I mean, Salem is a few miles down the road, right?”  
“No.” He straightened his spine, and took a deep swig from his mug of coffee. “The Salem witch trials took place in Salem, cause that's where the courthouse was. All the people that were witches though, came from Ipswich. We're in the hometown of the witches, boys.”  
“Oh.” Dean considered that, taking a bite of his own breakfast, a slice of toast. “So what is hunting witches like? All warts and cats?”  
John snorted. “Witches are humans who have made deals with demons, Dean.”  
He frowned, scratching at his jaw. “So what, normal people who sell their souls to have powers? Is that what witches are?”  
He nodded, taking another swig of coffee.  
“Bobby says that not all witches are like that,” Sam spoke up, standing to put his now-empty bowl in the kitchen sink, rinsing out the bowl. “He said there's another kind, called the Haxons, and he says they're born witches.”  
“Yeah, well... I’d thank Bobby Singer to keep his crackpot theories to himself,” John growled, grumbling.  
Dean leaned over to pat his father's arm, snickering. “You're just pissed cause he shot you.”  
John jerked his arm away. “Obviously.”  
“I gotta go to school,” Sam said, suddenly, cutting through the tension between John and Dean. “So... I’m gonna go.”  
“You taking the bus?” John glanced up.  
“Yeah, I figured that'd be easiest... I mean, it's outside of town, right, so it's not like I can just walk there...”  
“I'll drive you,” Dean said abruptly, standing up.  
John arched a brow.  
“I mean... if you'll let me use the car, dad...” He cleared his throat, awkwardly.  
Rolling his eyes, John leaned back to dig in his jean's pocket, and tugged out a key ring, dropping them into his now-grinning son's hand. “Yeah, yeah, drive Sammy to school. Just don't get used to it. I’m going to need that car more often now that we're in the middle of nowhere. Got it?”  
“Yes sir,” Dean grinned, and clapped his baby brother on the shoulder. “Get your stuff, geek boy, and let's get you to this school you're so excited about.”  
Sam beamed, and grabbed his backpack, throwing it over his shoulder and calling, “See you later, dad!” before darting outside.  
He snorted, and waved at his father as well, before heading outside.  
Sam was already sitting in the front passenger seat of the sleek, black 1967 Chevy Impala when Dean came out of the little house they were renting, and he laughed, shaking his head at his brother's eagerness as he slid into the driver's seat. “You are disturbingly excited about school, kiddo.”  
“I know,” he grinned, wriggling. “But it's such a good school, Dean...”  
Dean smiled softly, and started the car, pulling out of their little parking spot and onto the rough, rural roads. He wanted to make this day as perfect for Sam as he could. He wanted everything about this school, about this town, to be as perfect as he could manage it. He wasn't stupid, he knew how Sam was unhappy with their life, with the way that things were going. He'd noticed the school booklets and travel brochures that Sam tried to hide from him – usually for California. One of the few states that John didn't usually go to. He wasn't surprised by this. So he had high hopes for this school – if Sam was happy, he might not leave. So god he hoped that Spenser's Academy was everything that his brother wanted it to be. “You gonna try and make some friends and stuff here? Or stick with the usual routine of being a social outcast?”  
Sam swatted at Dean's arm. “Jerk.”  
“Bitch,” he smirked back. “Maybe you should join a sports team or something.”  
“Dad would never let me do that,” he rolled his eyes. “That would take way too much time away from our work.”  
“I dunno,” Dean tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, in time with the song playing quietly on the radio. “I mean, I’m not in school anymore, right, so I can give him a ton of time to help, and you know dad, he sort of disappears for a few days at a time. I say go for it. Give it a shot. Maybe you'll really like being in the middle of a normal teenaged life. Besides...” He glanced at him. “If you do go away to college, aren't they gonna want extra-curriculars on your application?”  
Sam looked at Dean sharply, startled. “Dad will never let me go to college.”  
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Dunno less you ask.”  
“Never.” Sam shook his head.  
He sighed a little. He'd much rather that Sam at least try to ask their father, because goddammit, if he just decided that John would never let him, and went anyway, he was going to burn bridges that Dean would have to rebuild. If he even could rebuild the bridges.  
“Maybe I’ll try to join swim team,” Sam said, abruptly, making his brother glance at him, surprised. “I like to swim. And it's not a team sport, so if I did have to miss practice or a meet or something, it wouldn't screw up the whole team.”  
“See, now you're thinking like a Winchester,” Dean grinned.  
He rolled his eyes, and smoothed his palms down the front of his suit jacket, his tie. “You know where you're going, right?”  
“Yes, Sammy, I know where I’m going,” he rolled his eyes. He hadn't been to the school yet, but John had made him memorize the map of the area, just in case anything happened and anyone needed to dash to Spenser's to pick up Sam for any reason. It did seem a little strange, though, to be driving through thick forested roads, through the countryside, heading towards some posh school set back in the hills.  
“Look, there's the sign!” Sam bounced in his seat, pointing eagerly at a large wooden sign, that read: Spenser's Academy for Higher Learning.  
“So it is,” he agreed, and turned into the laneway.  
And whistled, lowly, surprised. The school was huge. There were at least a good half dozen buildings spread out across the property, massive and old-world styled, like something had been plucked out of Europe and dropped here, in the middle of the woods. It looked rich and powerful, like the buildings themselves were hiding secrets and great strengths. “Holy shit, this is some school.”  
“Well, it's a boarding school,” Sam was leaning forward, eyes bright. “Only people who live in town don't live here, and even then most people do. Dad just wants me close to home, right?”  
“Right,” he nodded, pulling into the massive parking lot.  
“Which is a bit of a shame, I mean, it'd be really fun to live at school too.” He hesitated, glancing over at his brother. “I mean, not that I want to be away from you, or anything, that's not what I mean. It's just that I think it'd be fun to be at school. I would think dad'd be happy if I was here, though, I mean, isn't the whole point of boarding school that the school can control the students better?”  
Dean snorted, parking the Impala. “Fat chance. Remember, we're here cause two kids are dead.”  
“One dead,” he corrected his brother. “One missing.”  
“Oh come on, they found a kid dead in his car by a party, and a week later another one goes missing at another party? Poor son of a bitch is dead.”  
“Yeah, but that sounds like a normal set of murders.” He rolled his eyes, hugging his backpack.  
“Yeah, except that people are seeing darklings. And darklings,” he grinned, “Are the ghosts of people killed by witches. So. This is our kind of job. You want me to walk you up to the door?”  
“God no, that'd be humiliating,” he groaned.  
Dean snorted. “Sure it would be. At least I’m just your brother, not dad or something.”  
“Still,” he crinkled his nose.  
“How about I just stand by the car, and you walk up to the building. I’ll just stand here and watch to make sure you don't die on your way there, okay?” Dean grinned.  
Sam snorted, and pushed the door open, climbing out of the car. “Okay, I can take a bus home, no problems, okay?”  
“Well, sure. But I’ll be here if I have the car,” he smirked.  
“All right, all right,” he snorted, and waited until Dean climbed out of the car as well, and waved at him. “I'll see you later, okay?”  
“Yeah. Have fun.”  
Sam grinned, crookedly, and started running towards the school. His brother, the dork.  
Dean laughed, crossing his arms on the roof of the car, leaning on it as he watched his brother hurry towards the massive staircase on the front of the main school building. Sam darted up the stairs along with a few dozen other students, dressed in the same uniforms as Sam. He didn't turn until his little brother disappeared behind the doors, and ran his hand through his hair, sighing softly. It bothered him a little, to send Sammy into a building he'd never been inside of, to spend eight hours or so alone. Sure, there were other people there, but if there were witches there...  
He glanced up as a smooth sounding engine rolled up to a stop beside him. He whistled lowly, impressed.  
It was a silver Mustang convertible, top down, and a young man in a uniform like Sam's climbed out of the driver's seat, leaning over the side of the car to scoop up a black leather messenger bag, slinging it on his shoulder, and across his chest. He hesitated, suddenly, and glanced up to look up at Dean.  
He was tall and even with the uniform he could see that the other was muscled, swarthy. His hair and eyes were dark, and he smiled, abruptly, a sort of genuine, surprisingly trusting smile. “Nice car,” he said.  
“Funny,” Dean smirked, leaning on his own car. “I was about to say the same thing.”  
He laughed again, and rounded his car to offer Dean his hand. “Caleb Danvers.”  
“Dean Winchester,” he shook, smirking. They weren't using code names, this time around, they were actually using their own names. That was really the only way they could get Sam into school, after all. “Nice to meet you.”  
“You a new student?” He asked, releasing Dean's hand.  
He snorted. “Oh god no.”  
Caleb hesitated. “New teacher?”  
“Do I look like a teacher?” He arched a brow, glancing down at himself. He wore a battered leather jacket, a plaid overshirt, a t-shirt with some weathered logo, jeans and boots. He didn't know what kind of teachers they had at fancy schools like this, but he figured they sure as hell wouldn't look like he did.  
“Ah... no.” he laughed softly, sheepishly. “Sorry. I just wondered, you know...”  
“My brother's a new student.” He smirked. “Just dropped him off. I’m just heading out.”  
“Ah.” Caleb nodded. “So you don't seem like a creeper hanging around the school grounds, huh?”  
“Something like that,” Dean laughed, amused. It wasn't like he had to play nice and talk to a stranger, but if they were going to be investigating witches in this small town, they really ought to make themselves seem like they fit in. Strangers would be viewed with suspicion in a small town, and if they seemed friendly and comfortable, not only would they not stick out like sore thumbs, but they might be able to get more information than they would otherwise. Sam wasn't the only one who could get some information from someone in the school. “I'm not really into jailbait, anyway.”  
“Good thing some of us are over eighteen, hm?” He smirked, and clapped Dean on the shoulder, casually, before heading towards the school building. “See you around town?”  
“Yeah, probably,” he laughed. Was this guy actually flirting with him? “There anywhere to actually go in this hick town?”  
“Not a hell of a lot,” Caleb called, over his shoulder. “Just Nicky's!”  
“Nicky's?” He grinned. Interesting.  
“See you there tonight?” Caleb turned, walking backwards, holding onto the strap of his messenger bag, smirking slightly.  
“We'll see,” he laughed.  
“Be there!” he called back, and turned to head towards the school.  
“Either I’ve just been flirted with by a very friendly teenager, or people round here are just really friendly.” He snorted, and slid into the front seat of the Impala, starting the car.

\---

After spending the day picking up groceries and running research interference for dad, Dean came home to find a note from John to say that he was out on a research mission so Dean could have the car for the night and a message on the machine from Sam saying that he was staying late to research the school library. He crumpled up and threw out the note, and left the message in case John came home early, and headed back out.  
It wasn't hard to find Nicky's.  
The town wasn't really that big, really, just one long road to hit the highway out of town on one end and the ocean on the other. Nicky's was set back off the road with a gravel parking lot, and Dean couldn't help but grin at the appreciative looks the Impala garnered as he pulled into the parking lot. She may technically be his father's car, but his dad had that beater truck of his these days, and usually Dean got the beautiful machine to himself. She was his baby, too.  
Dean took a moment to adjust his jacket, to make sure he looked all right, then headed inside.  
Oh yeah, this was his kinda place.  
Sawdust on the floor, loud classic rock pouring with crackled static from an old jukebox, and smoke hanging hazy in the air. Fuck the anti-smoking laws. He was surprised by the amount of teenagers in the place, but there were a lot of rough and tumble looking fishermen types, sitting at the bar and at their little round tables, smoking and knocking back glass bottles of beer. Stepping up to the bar, he spoke lowly to a man that looked like he might be Nicky himself, and got himself a bottle of Coors and a red plastic basket tray with a thick, homemade burger and thick, homecut fries. He hadn't had real, good homecooked food in a long time, and it was kind of nice to get some real food, even if it was real bar food.  
Flopping down at one of the tables, in the back corner so that he was out of the way and able to watch the whole place, he dug into his food, starving.  
“Do you not eat on a regular basis, or something?”  
Dean glanced up, halfway through biting through a burger, and grinned slightly, eyes crinkling over his food. He took that bite he'd been trying to take, and leaned back, setting the burger in the tray, smirking. “Hey there, Caleb,” he said, mouth full.  
“Hello there, Dean Winchester.” The other tugged the chair across from Dean out from the table, and sat, grinning slightly. “Starving?”  
“Absolutely.” He grinned, swallowing his mouthful. “I haven't eaten since... I don't know, hours ago, or something.”  
He snorted. “Nice.”  
“So. Nice bar you got here,” he nodded at the room, licking mustard off his thumb. “It's exactly my sort of place. All white trash and classic rock.”  
Caleb flushed slightly, and glanced around. “I dunno... it's not much, but it's the only place we got to go in town. So we come here.”  
“Lot of teenagers here,” Dean snorted.  
“Well yeah, like I said, only place to go in town. So we come here. Nicky's usually pretty good at keeping the kids from underaged drinking.” He shrugged, considering Dean's bottle of beer for a moment.  
“Want to break the rules?” He smirked, pushing his bottle towards him.  
Caleb hesitated, then grinned, and took it from him, leaning back in his seat to sip at Dean's beer. It was a relaxed sort of thing, not the kind of thing where he looked like a kid sneaking one – it looked like a thing he was completely used to doing. Good to know that the kid wasn't against breaking the rules. “So,” Caleb said, hooking one of his arms over the back of his chair, smirking slightly at Dean as he sipped at the bottle. “Why'd you really come?”  
“I was curious,” he shrugged.  
“About the bar?” He took another swig. “Or about the invite?”  
Dean hesitated. This kid was flirting with him. And he sort of felt like that should bother him, but it really didn't. Actually, he sort of liked it. Oh god, he was going to have a complete freak out about this later, wasn't he? “Mostly about the invite.”  
“I thought so.” Caleb set the bottle back down, almost empty now. “Eat up. You still look starved.”  
He laughed, and bit into his burger again, pleased.  
Caleb picked at the label on the bottle, watching the room, quietly, glancing about. Dean watched him. The teenager had a sort of quiet, seriously studious look to him, and he had the inkling that normally he wasn't quite so bold or quite so... flirty, but something about Dean made him want to flirt like an expert, apparently. Sort of a flattering thing, wasn't it? But there was a strong, straight line to the other's shoulders, a sort of quiet strength that said that he was some kind of leader, supporting too much weight on his shoulders. His father had the same way of carrying himself. Like he had the weight of the world on his back.  
“Picking at the label is a known sign of sexual frustration,” Dean said, popping the last bite of his burger in his mouth.  
He started, surprised. Ha, he knew that Caleb wasn't as sleek and smooth as he'd been pretending to be. “Is that so?”  
“Absolutely.”  
“Well. Guess I need to fix that, then.” He smirked, and pushed the bottle away, again. He drew in a breath, closing his eyes for a moment, then opened them again, and asked, “Wanna go out back?”  
Dean hesitated. “Yeah.”  
Caleb grinned, and stood, slipping away from the table, through the crowds of teenagers and fishermen, leading the way to a back door. And Dean stood, pretty sure that this was one of the stupidest things he had ever done, and oh god, he shouldn't be doing this, but he marched right along after him, slipping through the crowd as well. He slipped out into the late evening air behind him, glancing around the alley like a good hunter, checking for any threats, any escapes, any possible weapons. There were stacks of metal kegs along the side of one wall, as well as stacks of wooden packing pallets, and a gravel path along the alley way ground. Interesting little place, really.  
“So,” Dean leaned on the metal wall of the side of Nicky's bar, hooking his thumbs in his pockets, considering Caleb. “We've come out back. Together. And apparently we're here to make sure you're not going to be sexually frustrated anymore. And how, exactly, do you mean to do that?”  
Caleb grinned, and stepped closer, quietly, considering him. “Wasn't sure. Thought maybe you'd know.”  
“Damn, am I playing with virgins again?” He smirked, and reached up to hook his index finger in the front of Caleb's white dress shirt, pulling him closer. Oh god, he was going to regret this later.  
“Not exactly,” he smirked, resting his hands lightly on Dean's hips. The touch was sort of hesitant, like he wasn't really quite sure what he was doing, but it was an eager sort of hesitance, like he really liked the idea of what was happening. But there was no hesitance to his leaning even closer, and drawing in a deep breath, nuzzling at Dean's jaw and neck, lightly.  
“Smelling me?” he smirked, sliding his hand up the other's back, then up to curl his fingers at the base of the other's neck, rubbing lightly at his hairline with his thumb.  
“You smell good,” Caleb murmured lightly, drawing in another deep breath, kissing the side of Dean's neck lightly.  
“Must have been that shower I had last week,” he smirked, drawing Caleb a little bit closer. Kid seemed to know what he was doing, he was just kind of scared of actually doing it. God, he was so going to jail for this, wasn't he? Well, if he ever got caught. Was that likely? He supposed it might be, but Caleb didn't really seem the type to suddenly freak out about what was happening and run to the police after wards. “Having fun?”  
“Mmhmm,” He murmured, kissing at Dean's neck, pressing even closer, chest against his, fingers tightening on his hips.  
He lifted his jaw, giving him more room to work, and sighed softly. Caleb's breath was hot against his neck, and the light, almost nervous movement of the other's lips against his skin felt really good. Better than he expected, really. “Got a thing for necks?”  
“Mm, guess so,” he scraped his teeth down his skin, and Dean sucked in a sharp breath.  
The funny thing was that Dean didn't do guys. Not never, or anything like that, because he'd experimented some in high school and he was a big believer in 'any port in a storm' if the situation came up, but he kinda figured that if he could get access to women, did he really need guys? But this was good. This was really pretty good, actually, all hesitant, sort of virginal fumbling with a guy he barely knew. Go figure.  
And he had no idea why Caleb thought he smelled good, but Caleb smelled damn amazing, like the most delicious forbidden treat in the world, so he was happy to bury his nose in the other's dark hair and breathe in the scent of him as Caleb set about trying to leave marks on his throat. He was going to be hickey'd up and he so didn't even care.  
Abruptly, Caleb lifted his head, and crushed his lips against Dean's.  
It was a clumsy sort of kiss, a mash of lips and teeth and noses bumping awkwardly, but Dean just tightened his hold on the other's neck, his other arm looped around Caleb's waist as he kissed him harder, pleased. He always had liked a good old fashioned furious and awkward kiss.  
“Fuck,” he gasped, breaking the kiss, panting.  
“Sounds good, but I think we really ought to do a thing or two first,” Dean smirked, rubbing at the base of the other's skull again. “Like I dunno, kissing a few more times, maybe trying a little handjobs or blowjobs, or something... I mean, we could just go to fucking, but...”  
Caleb laughed, eyes bright, and Dean grinned. “Nice.”  
“Yeah, you got a point, but still.” He laughed, and kissed him again, a quick hard press of lips again, then shifted down to nip at his neck again, his jaw again, pressing even closer to Dean. It was like he wanted to crawl into him, get as close and tight to him as he could, and yeah, when Dean rocked up into him, Caleb was apparently just as into this as he was. Which was nice. Very nice. “You, ah... mind if I leave marks, or...?”  
“Naw, go to,” Dean grinned. His father and brother were more than used to him coming home smelling like cheap bar perfume and covered in bruises that had nothing to do with hunting. “I kinda like marks.”  
He grinned, broadly, and darted forward to start nipping at Dean's neck again.  
Sighing happily, Dean let his head fall back against the metal wall, eyes falling shut as the teenager seriously went to work, nipping and licking and sucking. It was a good feeling, like he was being worshiped, or something. He felt special, which was pretty nice. He liked being adored.  
Caleb hesitated, and Dean felt like there was a moment of time that literally stood still.  
He felt like there was some kind of decision being made. A big decision, one that was probably going to change something, and change it a lot, but he had no idea what that decision was, or if it actually was Caleb that was making it, or if it was just some kind of omniscient Power that Be that was making some kind of decision for them.  
But apparently, whoever made it, that decision was made, because time picked back up again, then almost hurtled forward.  
And that was when sharp, oh so sharp, fangs pierced his skin, and Dean sucked in a sharp breath, arching harder into the other man, startled. Caleb had just bit him. Full on slid fangs into his skin, was biting him, right now, and there was a deep pull moment, like Caleb was actually sucking his blood out through the wound, and he arched again, into him, clawing at the other man's back.  
He wasn't trying to get him away.  
He was trying to get him closer.  
Dean cried out into the night air, eyes wide and desperate as he clutched at the other's shoulder blades and back, almost clawing at him as he arched and writhed. It felt good. Sinfully, desperately, absolutely terribly good. It felt like he'd just had a thousand orgasms all at once, his skin felt like it was on fire, and his blood felt like it was literally singing in his veins, which made no sense, but it felt so good. His eyes rolled back into his head, and his knees actually gave out. He slid down slightly, but Caleb clutched him even closer, pinning him to the wall as he held him up, and Dean just groaned deeply, clinging desperately to the other man's shoulders as Caleb full on drank his blood. His heart started pounding louder in his ears, drowning out the sounds of everything except for his heartbeat, and he could literally feel his heart thumping hard in his chest.  
And then Caleb drew those fangs out, and Dean cried out, disappointed. He felt empty now, like he was hollowed out suddenly.  
A scorching hot tongue slid across his skin, across the wounds, licking up the last little droplets of blood, then Caleb murmured, “M'sorry.”  
“You just - “ Dean panted, clutching at the other's shoulders. “You just drank my blood.”  
He cleared his throat, awkwardly. “Yeah.”  
“Fuck.” He just kept clutching to him, struggling to try and straighten up, but his knees wouldn't seem to actually hold his weight. He felt too heavy to actually support his own weight. “What are you? Vampire?”  
“No.” Caleb said quickly. “I'm no vampire.”  
“Bullshit,” he panted.  
“It's complicated,” He sighed, and reached up to run his fingers lightly through Dean's hair. He wanted to shy away, to get away from him, because holy shit the kid had just drank his blood. But he didn't, he curled closer to him, eyelids half lidded as he pressed into the touch. “It's very complicated. I’m not really a vampire. Vampires are... complicated.”  
“Tell me about it. They're supposed to be extinct, anyway.”  
“They're not, but that's hardly the point.” He cleared his throat, still stroking Dean's hair, quietly. “Just... try to pretend it never happened.”  
Dean glanced up at him, still trying to hold himself up, but just gave up, and let himself sag. Let the teenager hold him up, it was all his fault he was all weak and wobbly now anyway. “I am not about to just forget that that happened, Caleb. You drank my blood. But all rights, I should be hunting you.”  
The other froze. “Hunting?”  
“Complicated. Like the vampire thing.” He shot back.  
Caleb abruptly backed up, and Dean collapsed to his knees, startled, crashing to the gravel. “Sorry,” he said, quickly, but he looked pale. “What kind of hunter...?”  
“Fuck,” he climbed to his feet, awkwardly, rubbing his sore knees. He still felt weak. “What kind of question is that?”  
“What kind of hunter?!” he cried.  
Dean glanced up at him, frowning. “I hunt monsters, all right?”  
The other's shoulders slumped slightly. “You're just human?”  
“What kind of question is that?” He braced himself against the wall, sighing heavily. He was starting to get a bit of his strength back, but he was definitely regretting not having a gun on him. He hadn't brought it because he'd figured he would look out of place with a gun in his pants in a bar like this, but now that he was out here with an apparent vampire, he really wished he had one. “Do I not look human? I’m obviously human.”  
“Just had to check,” Caleb stepped closer to him again, and reached out to brush his fingers over Dean's hair.  
“What'd you do to me?” Dean murmured, closing his eyes. The light touch on his hair didn't make him want to get away, just like before, it made him want to curl closer to him, to bury his face in the other's throat and just draw in the scent of him. It was freaking him out that it wasn't freaking him out. “You thrall me or something?”  
“No,” he said quietly, still stroking his hair gently. “I'm not a vampire, Dean.”  
“You said that. But you drank my blood.”  
“Yeah. And I’m really sorry about that. I really shouldn't have.” Caleb groaned softly. “You just... smelled really good...”  
“And that's not creepy at all.” He cleared his throat.  
“Come on, let me take you home.”  
“No offense, but I’m not sure I want you to know where I live,” Dean crinkled his nose, fighting to stand up, properly.  
“I already know. It's a small town, Dean, it's not hard to ask around where the Winchesters moved in.”  
“Again with the 'and that's not creepy at all',” he groaned. “I'm going to be fine.”  
“It's like you gave blood,” he slid his arm around Dean's waist, holding him up. “You're going to be dizzy and lightheaded, in need of cookies, and you definitely shouldn't be driving like this.”  
“Fine.” He sighed. “But you put a single scratch on the Impala, and I get to stake you.”  
Caleb snorted. “I'm not a vampire, remember? A staking isn't going to kill me.”  
“It also sure as hell ain't gonna tickle.”  
“Good point,” he agreed, and helped Dean walk out of the alleyway, towards the parking lot and the car.

\---

“Dean?”  
He cracked a single eye open, reluctantly, and considered his baby brother, who was sitting on the edge of Dean's own bed, peering down at him. “Hey, sasquatch. What are you doing?”  
Sam rolled his eyes. “You were home late.”  
“Was I?” He frowned, trying to actually remember. He thought they'd left Nicky's pretty early – oh right, they had left Nicky's pretty early. But then they'd pulled off the road into the woods at one point, and yeah, by the time he got home it had been pretty late. Whoops. “Oh yeah. Sorry about that. What, you weren't waiting up for me, were you?”  
“No,” Sam frowned slightly, and leaned forward to poke his brother's neck. “You have bite marks.”  
He cleared his throat, awkwardly. “Ah, well... shall I explain the birds and the bees to you, Sammy boy? Because that's why some good looking guys like me end up with bite marks on their neck.”  
“Freak,” Sam swatted him.  
He cackled, and reluctantly sat up, running his hand through his hair. He felt less dizzy now, which was a good thing. He'd felt sort of loopy last night.  
“So do I know this girl?” Sam asked, tugging his knees up to his chest, hugging them, cheek resting on his knees.  
“Nope.” He said confidently, swinging his legs out of the bed, and stood, stretching. Heading for the dresser he'd shoved most of his clothes into, he dug in it for something to wear, and tugged his jeans on over his boxers.  
“What makes you so sure? I’ve met a few people around town already...”  
“Because it's not a girl.” Dean said, casually. About time to assess exactly what his brother's reaction was going to be.  
There was silence for a few long minutes, and Dean glanced back at his brother.  
Sam looked... stunned. His eyes were wide, startled.  
“Well?” He leaned on the dresser, crossing his arms over his still-bare chest, waiting for his brother to come up with some reaction, some answer. It wasn't really like Sam to be completely silent when he heard something.  
“You're gay?” Sam asked, slowly.  
“No,” Dean shrugged.  
“But you said – oh.” He hesitated, scratching his jaw slightly, considering that. “So you're... into both, then?”  
“No, not particularly,” He shrugged again, and turned to tug a t-shirt out of the dresser, tugging it on. “It sort of just depends on the person, I guess.”  
“Oh.” Sam cleared his throat. “So... do I know the guy?”  
“Dunno, kiddo.” He walked back over by the bed, ruffling his brother's hair, grinning. “So. You like the new school so far?”  
“Yeah!” He perked up.  
“Good. That was the whole point, right? You got to go to a school you actually liked, and me and dad get to hunt the witches in town.” We should probably be hunting the vampires too, shouldn't we? Still don't know why I’m not freaking out about this like I should be... “So you're all ready to go in an hour or so?”  
“Dunno if dad'll let you drive me or not, but...”  
“Always worth a shot. Get that terrible uniform of yours on, kiddo.” He grinned, and headed out into the hallway, then down the hall to the kitchen.  
John was sitting at the kitchen table, scowling as he pored over an assortment of papers spread out across the table, like a small literary hurricane had struck the room and dumped all of John's notes and maps across the space. He reached out blindly for his mug of coffee, and took a swig without looking up from the papers, and when Dean walked into the room, he said gruffly, “You better be able to best this man in a fight.”  
Dean blinked, surprised. “Dad?”  
He looked up, taking another swig of the coffee, considering Dean seriously over the rim of the mug. “If you're going to be messing with men, make sure you're able to best him in a fight. Just in case.”  
He gaped at his father. “Woah, dad, what - ?”  
“He doesn't drive the car like you do,” John set his mug down. “So I looked out the window.”  
Dean groaned, sitting at the table. “So you saw...?”  
“Yeah.”  
Well, that would remind Dean to never, ever kiss anyone outside of the house ever again. Because the very last thing he needed was John spying on him making out with anyone, much less a guy. Shit, it was a good thing that Caleb hadn't decided to get fang happy outside the house, though, because while it was awkward enough to explain him making out with a man, making out with a vampire was going to have his father shooting at him. A lot.  
“Right.” He cleared his throat, scratching the back of his neck. “Well, ah... I’ll make sure to... pick carefully.”  
John grunted, satisfied with that answer, and pushed a couple papers across to him. “These are the dead kids. Both new transfers into the town, one was found dead in his car at a party, the other went missing a week later, the same night there was a fire at the old Putnum barn.”  
“Putnum...” Dean glanced up from the photocopy of a student id. “Like John Putnum? The guy who was hung for being a witch back in the Salem witch trials?”  
“Exactly.” He nodded.  
“Damn. Wouldn't have thought that would still be standing,” he blinked.  
“The Putnum family is dead. All of their property was annexed by one of the other founding families...” He sifted through the papers, then tugged one out, offering it to Dean. “The Putnum barn stands on the Danvers property.”  
Dean froze. “...Danvers.”  
“Yeah,” he nodded, flicking out another piece of paper. “The five founding families were the Danvers, the Simms, the Parrys, the Garwins, and the Putnums. The first four still have heirs in town, all four families are still here. It looks like a really good chance that all five of these families were witches, actually, so those four boys,” he tapped the photocopy of the student ids for a Caleb, a Tyler, a Reid, and a Pogue. “Are probably the witches we're looking for.”  
“Oh.” He cleared his throat.  
“Something wrong?” John arched a brow.  
“No... not exactly...” Dean cleared his throat again, looking sort of sheepish, awkward.  
“Which of the four of them were you with last night?” He leaned back, crossing his arms, sighing heavily.  
“Would you believe me if I said none of them?” He asked, sheepishly.  
“No.” John smirked slightly.  
“Didn't think so.” He sighed, leaning back in his seat. “Caleb Danvers.”  
“Hm.” He considered the papers. “At least he's the oldest one of the group...”  
“Dad...”  
“All right, look. I want you to use this connection, then. Talk to this kid, find out as much about him as you can. Find out if he is a witch. Because if he is... well. You know what we need to do.”  
“Yeah, I know.” He cleared his throat.  
“And be careful. Don't let him know that you're a hunter.”  
Too late.  
“Of course, dad.”  
“Well. Drive your brother to school,” he smirked, already pulling more papers towards himself to work on. “Maybe you'll run into your boyfriend again.”  
“Dad!” He squawked.  
John actually snickered, shaking his head.

\---

“Dean,” Sam said abruptly, “Do you ever have really weird dreams?”  
He glanced over at him, startled. “What?”  
Sam squirmed in his seat, and glanced over at Dean, where he sat in the driver's seat. “Do you ever have really weird dreams? Like... not just weird a little. Like... dreams where... people's eyes are the wrong colour, and...”  
“Like me having brown or blue eyes or something?” he asked, skeptically.  
“No, like... you having white eyes, and... me having black eyes, and... dad having yellow eyes...”  
Dean hissed. “You're having dreams of us being possessed?”  
“No!” Sam said quickly, holding up his hands. “No really, not possessed. Eyes are wrong, all the wrong colours, like we were possessed, or something, but... not being possessed. It's really hard to explain.”  
“Complicated, hm?” He smirked.  
“Yes!” He nodded, quickly. “Complicated. Very complicated.”  
He snickered, and shook his head. “Okay, so you have dreams where we have the wrong colour of eyes, but aren't possessed. I don't really get it, but okay, so you're having weird dreams.”  
“Yeah. Do you... get those?”  
“No, can't say as I have,” he considered that, thoughtfully. “I've had weird dreams of oceans of blood and stuff, but...”  
Sam shuddered. “Ew.”  
“Yeah, pretty much,” Dean agreed, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. “You been having these dreams long?”  
“Long as I can remember,” he admitted. “But it's gotten a lot worse, since we got here to Ipswich. They're happening all the time, now, it's like... the moment I close my eyes, all I can see is those images of our family all... wrong.”  
“Hm. That's not good,” He murmured, not liking the idea of that. “Hey... have you met any of the... founding families? Ah, Garwin, Simms, Parry... Danvers?”  
“I met Reid Garwin,” Sam said, and his brother was very flushed.  
“Really?” Dean smirked, glancing at him. “And why are you bright red, brother of mine?”  
“Shut up,” he muttered, flushing even brighter red.  
“Wait...” A slow grin spread across his face, and he thumped his fingers on the steering wheel with an almost gleeful gait. “Is it possible, perhaps, that I’m not the only one in the family who happens to have no problem with ending up with men?”  
“Dean!” Sam squawked.  
“It's totally true!” he roared in laughter, terribly amused. “Did you hook up with a founding family member?”  
“No,” he said fiercely, crossing his arms over his chest, flushed. “I have not.”  
“Flirted with?”  
“...got flirted with?” He squirmed, seeming reluctant to admit it.  
“Well, that's not so bad,” Dean grinned, amused.  
“You're a complete son of a bitch,” Sam muttered, displeased, and looked even more displeased when Dean laughed aloud at his comment. He scrambled out of the car the moment Dean parked in the lot, and muttered, “I'll see you after school.”  
“Flirt it up with hot guys!” Dean called after him, cackling. “It's totally worth it!”  
He flicked him the finger, and marched off.  
Laughing, he leaned back in the driver's seat, hands folded on his stomach as he watched his brother head towards the school. And that was when the passenger door opened, and a familiar guy slipped into the passenger seat.  
“Hey, Dean.” Caleb smirked.  
“Hey,” he smirked, and didn't even complain about the fact that the other had basically just invaded his car. “Sleep well?”  
“Not bad,” he shrugged, twisting in his seat to face Dean, smiling. “Any chance you're not busy today?”  
“Sure, I’m not doing a hell of a lot, but way I hear it, you need to go to school today, so you are busy.” Dean smirked, shifting himself so that he faced Caleb, his arm slung lazily over the back of the front bench seat. “Unless you're planning on playing hooky.”  
“That was... sort of the idea.” He laughed.  
“Never gonna get into Harvard if you keep skipping school,” he smirked.  
“Sure I will. I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. All I have to do is tell my mother to make a nice big donation to the school, and I’ll be set.”  
“Oh yeah, that's great, make me feel crappy about the fact that I’m just some poor bitch that you've managed to take an interest in,” Dean rolled his eyes. “All right, let's get the hell out of here, then. You'll just have to tell me where we're going. We really ought to talk, anyway.”  
“Uh oh.”  
“Oi, what's that reaction for? Perhaps a bit of talking is a good idea. I mean, unless you'd rather we just spent the whole day doing anything but talking, but a conversation or two ain't a bad idea, is it?”  
Besides, I need to find out who the hell you actually are. What you actually are.  
“Yeah, I suppose,” Caleb frowned slightly, then patted the dashboard. “All right, take us out towards the bluffs. It's a nice quiet part of town.”  
He smirked, amused, and pulled the car out of the parking lot, following the directions Caleb gave him.  
Twenty minutes later, he parked the car on the bluffs, on the edge of a cliff, and cut the engine. Stretching, he lay his arm across the back of the front seat, and brushed his fingers across the back of the other's neck, casually. It was a sort of gratifying thing when Caleb leaned closer, sighing softly as he curled into the touch. “So. We should talk.”  
“Nnngh. Fine.” Caleb didn't pull away from him, though. “What should we talk about?”  
“What are you?”  
The blunt approach. It had worked before, no harm in trying to see if it worked with witches/vampires/whatever the hell Caleb was.  
He groaned softly, and muttered, “Okay. You asked if I was a vampire.”  
“Are you?”  
“No... not exactly.” He scratched at his jaw.  
“It's complicated, huh?”  
“Yeah,” Caleb snorted, but squirmed closer to Dean, idly resting his head on the other's shoulder. It was a relaxing sort of moment, despite the conversation itself. “Yeah, it's really complicated. 'Vampire' is sort of an umbrella term. It covers a massive amount of people, three major groups.”  
“Oh yeah?”  
“Well... here's the thing. Vampires are usually undead monsters, you know, the kind of things that people really hunt. They're called Brujah, they're undead creatures that used to be alive, used to be human. Then they get turned, and they become creatures that have to drink human blood to survive, because they're own bodies don't produce blood that can carry oxygen anymore. That's a Brujah.”  
“And they're extinct?” Dean frowned.  
“Extinct, are you kidding?” He glanced up at him. “There are hundreds of thousands of them. They're a big minority group everywhere in the world, especially here, in the states. Hell, they could get a candidate into senate on their votes alone, they're that big of a minority group.”  
“That seems... unsettling.” He shuddered.  
“It really is.”  
“So that's what vampires are, then?” He considered the man leaning on his shoulder, frowning slightly. He was just a kid, really – a bloodsucking kid. He should have staked him ages ago. “Wait. So does staking work on them?”  
Caleb glanced up. “Far as I know. You can also chop their heads off. I think the sunlight thing is mostly a myth.”  
“Well, yeah, as there's sunlight on you right now and you're not bursting into flame.” Dean smirked.  
“I told you, I’m not a vampire. Well.” Caleb hesitated. “I'm not a Brujah.”  
“Knew you were a bloodsucker,” he smirked. “What are you?”  
“I'm a Haxon.”  
Dean frowned for a moment. He was sure he'd heard that word somewhere before – of course. Sammy had been talking about them yesterday. “I thought Haxons were a type of witch.”  
Caleb cleared his throat.  
“Holy shit.” Dean gaped at him. John had said he probably was, but... “You're a witch.”  
He groaned. “No one is supposed to know.”  
“Well, no kidding, because then your neighbours would be burning you at the stake!”  
Caleb winced.  
“All right, so why wasn't I supposed to know? Because I’m a hunter?” He arched a brow.  
“Technically the fact that you're a hunter has nothing to do with it.” Caleb ran his fingers through his hair, swallowing. He still hadn't risen from where he was resting on Dean. “See... regular Haxons and... our covenant... they're different.”  
“Explain.”  
“Well, Haxons are witches, right. Strange unnatural powers and all that.”  
“That you sold your soul to get?”  
“What? No!” Caleb gaped at him. “That would just be a witch. Haxons are born, not created. We come into a taste of our power at thirteen, and that's when we start to hunger for the... you know... taste of blood. But unlike the Brujahs, we don't need to drink it. Not then, anyway. On our eighteenth birthdays, we come into our full powers. It's called Ascension. But our powers are sort of tied to our life, and we... age, faster than most people. Faster than mortals, anyway.”  
“Than mortals – wait. So you age super fast, but you're still immortal?”  
“Yeah. It kind of sucks.” He crinkled his nose.  
“That... seems really... stupid.” Dean said, at last.  
“Well, there's a way around the... aging.” Caleb seemed to be picking his words very carefully. “If a Haxon drinks enough blood, they can slow it. To a normal mortal rate, or sometimes even slower. We can't stop it completely, nothing will do that, because we're still alive. Unlike the Brujahs, which are technically dead, Haxons are a live... vampire. That's why we hate the word 'vampire' because they're undead. We still have heartbeats, we still can have kids, we just... our bodies break down too fast, and only blood will slow that down.”  
“Can't you do a spell to stop the aging?” He smirked, mischevious.  
“Like wishing for the genie to give you more wishes. Doesn't work.”  
“Shame,” Dean stroked the other's hair.  
They were silent for a few minutes, just a comfortable sort of silence, even though there was no way it should be comfortable.  
“So you said you're not like normal Haxons. Why?”  
“Well, for one thing, we don't just drink from people. Our covenant likes making alliances, marrying someone who knows about our secret, and drinking only from them, to slow the aging down at least a little.”  
Dean blinked. “...are you aware that by that arrangement you just made me your wife then?”  
Caleb cleared his throat. “...technically.”  
“I don't think that's even legal in this state.”  
“Actually - “ he started, then cut himself off, quickly. “It doesn't matter anyway. I don't want to force you into anything. I should not drink from you again.”  
“And if I wanted you to?” He asked, trying to keep it light.  
Caleb glanced up at him, sharply.  
“Well?”  
“Then... I guess I’d drink again,” he cleared his throat. “I'm not about to turn down an offer of blood, that would be insane. It's hard enough to find... ah, donors. Especially for us. The other big difference between us and other Haxons is that we have a Covenant of Silence.”  
“You're sworn to silence,” Dean repeated.  
“Yeah. Pretty much.”  
“Huh.” He considered that. “So you're different from others because you... what, don't hurt people?”  
“Exactly.” Caleb said fiercely.  
“I gotta call bullshit on that one.”  
He blinked. “Huh?”  
“Two kids were killed back in September,” Dean frowned, stroking Caleb's hair lightly. “And people have been seeing Darklings, which means people have been killed by witches. So either one of your friends is lying to you, or you're lying to me.”  
“Chase Collins.”  
“Yeah, he's one of the dead kids - “  
“Missing.” Caleb said, quickly. “We can't find his body, so we suspect very strongly that he's not dead. But he killed that first kid. Nearly killed one of our Covenant, too, two girls at school, and even I barely survived.”  
“What, he was a hunter?” Dean scowled.  
“No – he was a typical Haxon.” Caleb sighed. “He was desperate to stop the aging, but he hadn't been raised Haxon, so he had no idea the blood would do it, just that he craved it. We didn't want him to figure it out, so we stuck with the Covenant of silence, never told him. He thought my power would stop his aging, so he tried to get it from me. But the power is the life, so if I had willed it to him, like he wanted, it would have killed me.”  
“So there are darklings because of someone else,” he considered that.  
“And because there have been Haxons here since the fifteen hundreds,” Caleb shrugged. “People have died over the generations. It happens. We nearly got wiped out during the witch trials, and hunters come along every once in awhile, trying to wipe us out just because we're not exactly human. Which if you ask me, is the ultimate in prejudice, but - “ he hesitated. “...oh, right. You're a hunter. Bad comment to make to a hunter.”  
He smirked. “Exactly. Now. You said three kinds. You've only told me two.”  
Caleb hesitated.  
“Come on, Caleb.” He ran his fingers over his hair again, teasingly. “You promised.”  
He groaned softly, and squirmed closer to Dean. “Okay, okay. But these ones actually are extinct, so I don't know why you'd care.”  
“Because I’m curious.” And because dad would be pissed if I didn't get every detail.  
“They're called Nightshades. They're alive, too, like us – or they were – but they were actually immortal. Stopped aging and all.”  
“How?”  
“First time they drank, they stopped aging. But they don't crave blood like other vampires do, they just... they could be perfectly normal people, age their whole life, and die without ever drinking blood. Nightshades get... turned by other Nightshades, when they share blood.”  
“Sounds gross,” he scowled. “So why are they dead?”  
“Because Nightshades don't drink human blood.” Caleb murmured. “They drink Haxon and Brujah blood. They're a race literally created to destroy the other two. The legends say they were created to balance the universe, to keep the Haxons and the Brujahs from killing all of the humans. Made to keep humans alive. And now that they're dead...”  
“Isn't it good for you that they're dead?”  
“No.” Caleb murmured. “Sure, I don't want to be hunted just cause I’m a Haxon. That's a pure bullshit reason. But people are dying.”  
“What, the Haxons and the Brujahs?”  
“No. There are too many of us now. Our only natural predator is gone, all that's left are human hunters, and no offense, but human hunters can't do what the Nightshades did. Our population is... exploding. And that means we need more people to feed from, and more territory – a lot more territory. Last year, Brujahs declared war on the Haxons.”  
“A vampire war.” Dean said, slowly.  
“Yeah.” Caleb murmured. “And I don't think many of either of the races will die. But I do think the collateral damage would wipe out humanity.”  
“So you need Nightshades.”  
“Easier said than done!” Caleb protested. “They're extinct, remember? Sure, there might be people out there who would be Nightshades if they were turned, but you need a Nightshade to turn them in the first place!”  
“Damn,” Dean considered that. “Though you know, if anyone knew any stories about where to find one... it might be my dad.”  
“Why would he – hunter.” He sighed.  
“That really bothers you, huh?”  
“Why doesn't it bother you?” He tossed back. “You're the hunter, here! Hunter family, even! By all rights, you should either be hammering iron nails into me, or running for the hills.”  
“You want me to do either of those?”  
“No, obviously not, it's just...”  
“To be honest with you,” Dean trailed his fingers lightly down the back of the other's neck. “The fact that I’m not freaking out is freaking me out.”  
Caleb laughed softly. “Maybe I have pheromones no one's ever told me about.”  
Dean barked with laughter.  
And of course in the midst of all that comfortable happiness, his cell phone rang. Grumbling to himself, Dean dug in his pocket for his phone, and seeing the display flash 'DAD', he immediately answered it, holding up a finger to Caleb to indicate 'one minute'. “Dad?”  
“Dean!” His father's voice seemed to crackle, like there was interference. “Go to that school right now, get your brother, get him somewhere safe. Not home.”  
He blinked. “But sir - “  
“Now, Dean. We were lured here. Yellow eyes is here.”  
Dean's spine straightened. “The yellow eyed demon is here? How? How do you know?!”  
“Just get your brother, Dean.”  
Then John hung up.  
“Dammit!” Dean cranked the engine on, then peeled out of their parking spot without bothering to buckle up.  
“What's going on?” Caleb gasped.  
“I gotta go get Sam.”  
“Did I hear you say you needed to get him because of a – a yellow eyed demon?” He asked, looking sort of incredulous, gripping the door handle tightly.  
“Yeah. Been hunting the son of a bitch my whole life.”  
“But – I mean, you do know there's no such thing as a yellow eyed demon, right?”  
Dean glanced at him. “Of course there is.”  
“No,” he said, voice confident. “There isn't. Demon's eyes turn red. Brujah's eyes turn yellow. Haxon's eyes turn black. There is literally no such thing as a yellow eyed demon.”  
He hesitated. “Are you sure?”  
“Dean. I’m a Haxon. I’ve spent my whole life growing up with this, I’ve spent years walking around with vampires and demons and I know exactly what I’m talking about. If your father is hunting something with yellow eyes, then there are Brujah in town. And that means they know we're here.”  
“You think they've come cause of that war thing?”  
“I have no doubt.”  
“Son of a bitch,” Dean muttered, and pushed the gas down even harder, gravel spraying as he took a turn a little too wide.  
He was so distracted he didn't even notice the black Dodge Charger, a classic in all the same ways his car was, pulled out from a sideroad, and fell into line behind him.

\---

Trying to keep as low a profile as possible, John slid through the farmer's market – flea market style shop he was in, sticking to shadows as much as he could.  
The woman he was tailing was distracted by everything, it seemed. Her fingers would trail over the skirts of dolls on display in one booth, squeeze several loaves of bread in another booth, then push through a tray of brightly coloured buttons on yet another. He noticed, too, the way her fingers would pick up some of them, and put most of them back, just a few left in the palm of her hand, then she'd move on. She'd fiddle with the buttons, or whatever else it was she'd snatched from that booth, and would play with them for a moment, then would just drop them. They had no interest for her, apparently, beyond just a momentary intrigue.  
He was curious about her. She was strange.  
But the worst part was that he knew he had to track her, had to follow this woman. She was a doe-eyed, patient looking slip of a thing with long, dark waves in her hair, but he needed to follow her because of what he had seen, earlier.  
As she'd been walking through one of the other booths, earlier, her eyes had flashed a different colour.  
Her eyes had flashed yellow.  
He was used to following yellow-eyed men, but demons could possess different bodies, naturally, so he supposed it made perfect sense that the yellow-eyed demon could possess a woman just as easily as a man. It had just never occurred to him.  
She looked like she'd stepped out of another time period, this woman. Her hair was long, pinned back by a little clip made of mother of pearl, and she wore a long, white dress that was light, almost diaphanous, very Edwardian. There was a porcelain doll draped over her arm, long curls hanging in the dolls face, obscuring it. It was strange, though, because she stood out, so much, like something that didn't quite seem to belong. Demons usually chose to possess people that didn't stand out, people that just sort of seemed to blend in nicely. But no, this woman looked like she truly belonged to a different time, a different place.  
He lost sight of her for a moment, and John hissed, displeased, picking up his pace, trying to find her.  
He darted around a corner, and found himself in a small back alley on the back of several booths, a poorly lit area with no exits. He stepped a little further forward into the little area, glancing behind several of the stacked boxes there, wondering if he would find her hiding behind one – she did seem the type to play hide and seek – but she wasn't there. There was nothing.  
John sighed, and turned to head back, to look for her elsewhere.  
And froze.  
The woman stood in the little entrance of the alleyway, arms draped in front of her, holding the doll by its hands, smiling. It was an almost demented smile, like there was something just not... right about the smile she gave him. But her eyes were just deep chocolate, not the sick yellow they'd been before, and she looked almost... angelic.  
“You've been following me,” she said, in a sing song sort of voice. “Naughty naughty boy, trailing the lady.”  
“I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about.” John fell into a lie, easily. He'd practised lying enough in his life to make if full on second nature. “I'm looking for my son. Have you seen him? He's about six feet tall, dark hair, eighteen, wearing a school uniform?”  
“Not yet,” she said, smiling as she walked closer.  
“Then I guess I’d better take my leave.” He smiled tightly, and murmured, quietly, “Christo.”  
“Oh, how cute,” she gushed, and she didn't shudder and twitch like demons he'd seen before. Dammit. Maybe he'd imagined it, maybe she really was just a woman. “I was a nun once, did you know? I could give you the litany of the prayers, or perhaps we should pay penance together, my friend, we shall pray...” She stepped even closer to him, reaching up to trail her fingertips lightly along John's stubbled jaw.  
He jerked back, out of her range.  
She giggled again, and stepped closer to him again, her chest almost against his as she ran her fingers down his jaw again. It was an affectionate sort of gesture, loving. But it was also a twisted sort of thing, because she flicked her fingernail across his jaw, suddenly, and John sucked in a sharp breath. She'd cut him, casually, as though it was almost nothing.  
“Oh, what a lovely sort of thing,” she leaned up on the tip of her toes, and lapped the blood off his jaw.  
John shoved her back, and gaped at her when she didn't move at all. She was stronger than he'd expected.  
“Naughty naughty,” she slid her hands up to cup his jaw, stroking his collarbones with her thumb. He glanced about the for the doll, for a moment, actually curious if maybe the doll itself had something to do with everything that was going on, and realized that she'd just dropped it. It's face was broken, now, cracked from forehead to jaw, one of its eyes now aimed in the wrong direction. “Play nice, my beautiful prince, or I shall have to punish you.”  
“You're the yellow-eyed demon,” he growled, wondering if he had any weapon on him capable of harming this son of a bitch, short of an exorcism.  
“I am no such thing,” She giggled, leaning up on her tiptoes to press her lips lightly to his. “I am an angel.”  
“You are not.” He snapped.  
“Yes,” she smiled, stroking his jaw again, humming softly. “I most certainly am. I am an angel and you are my knight, my knight in shining armour, who shall fetch the princesses from the castles for me, and bring me their hair, all bundled up in piles so that I can weave them together into ropes, for climbing up into towers.”  
“Stay away from me,” John backed up again.  
His back bumped into the wall of one of the booths, and he nearly cursed himself out. Goddammit, he knew better than to let himself get cornered, than to let himself get caught. But this woman wasn't what he had been expecting – he had imagined what would happen when he found the yellow-eyed bastard a million times before, but every time he had imagined it, it had been the demon gloating and laughing and just trying to make fun of him, and John killing it immediately. But that wasn't what happened now, she was talking nonsense and babbling about some metaphor he didn't understand.  
The woman pressed right against his chest, and kissed him again, a soft, light touch, and murmured against his lips, “But I have come to give you what you have been waiting to have, for all these years. I have a promise for you, John.”  
“How do you know who I am?” He snarled. The hackles were right back up again.  
“I have been waiting a long time for you, my knight,” she murmured, happily, and pressed closer to him. “Wouldn't you like to live forever, John?”  
“And what would I need to pay for immortality, hm? Because I won't sell my soul.”  
“I don't want your soul, silly boy,” she giggled, stroking her palms down his neck, his collarbone, across his shoulders. He noticed when she unbuttoned his shirt, spreading the collar out and open, but he couldn't think of why she was doing that. “I just want your love.”  
“You won't get that.”  
“Oh, I really think I will,” she murmured, and her eyes flickered, turning yellow.  
John sucked in a sharp gasp of air, startled, alarmed. She really was the yellow eyed demon. She really was what he'd expected. But she didn't look right, her face had angles and shapes that it shouldn't have, and her teeth weren't human at all, they were elongated and sharp, like full on fangs.  
Like a vampire, not a demon.  
But that didn't make sense, why would the yellow-eyed demon be a vampire, it was a demon, all of his sources said so, no vampire would want to feed blood to an infant and kill a woman who had never harmed them...  
Abruptly the woman sank her teeth into his throat, and John cried out, startled. She was faster than he could even see, like a snake.  
John struggled, trying to get away from her, but she pushed her hands hard against his shoulders, pushing him back, holding him there, drinking long and deep from his throat. He fought to get away from her, struggled to get his gun, to get his knife, to do anything to get free of her, but she drank on, and soon, he was getting weaker.  
Just as he was sure he was about to pass out, she pulled back from him, those fangs bloody, his blood smeared across her lips, her chin, down her neck, even, like she was a messy eater.  
“Oh god...” John whimpered, slumping back against the wall, afraid he was going to die here. He was supposed to be better than this. He was supposed to be a good hunter, he was supposed to be a genius at what he did, he wasn't supposed to be stupid enough to get himself into a corner, get pinned by a slip of a woman, and drained by a vampire. That wasn't supposed to be how it happened.  
“You shan't die, my knight,” she smiled, and ran her fingertips lightly across her own chest, slicing open her collarbone, blood bubbling to the surface of the wound. “Drink.”  
“No...” he shook his head, leaning back, panting.  
“Does mommy have to spank?” She said, teasingly, sing songy. “Does mommy have to force her naughty little boy to drink his milk?”  
He had to conserve strength, just in case, he had to get away...  
She nipped at the inside of her own wrist with those fangs, then shoved her bleeding wrist right into his mouth.  
John struggled to get away again, eyes wide, breathing hard through his nose as he just tried to avoid swallowing. But she was bound and determined that he was going to drink, and she was going to drink as much as she wanted him to, so she pressed the wound harder into his mouth, actually pinching his nose with her other hand, so that he couldn't breathe.  
He fought to get away from her, fought to get out of her control, but finally, John was forced to swallow.  
Her blood was strong and iron tasting as it flooded down his throat in forced swallows, until finally he couldn't resist anymore, and had to just keep swallowing, again and again.  
She'd won.  
The edges of John's vision faded out, then more of his vision went black, and finally he sagged against her.  
She caught him, holding the man twice her size up, almost like he was a toy, and cradled him close to her like she had cradled her doll, before, stroking his hair, humming softly.

\---

Dean wasn't entirely convinced that this was exactly the right 'plan of attack', so to speak, but it was sort of the only option they had, considering John had resolutely ordered Dean to take Sammy somewhere safe that was not their house. He'd asked Caleb what he thought the safest place was, and the witch-vampire-Haxon had said “The First House”.  
Cause that wasn't an ominous sounding thing at all.  
But as he drove up towards this 'first house' that Caleb had directed him to, he had to admit that it did look pretty secure.  
“This looks like the set of a horror film!” Sam yelped from the back seat.  
Yes, or a horror movie set.  
It was a massive house, set back deep in the woods, though it still stood remarkably intact considering its obvious age. Whatever farm had once been out here with it was now long gone, yet still the house itself stood, intimidating and impassive, its dark windows like blank, glowering eyes. It sort of loomed like a hulking animal, waiting for anyone foolish enough to try and breach its ancient walls. Yeah, maybe Sammy was right about it being a horror movie set.  
“The only thing you have to worry about out here is Gorman,” Caleb said lightly, climbing out of the passenger seat.  
Halfway out of the car himself, Dean stopped dead. “Gorman?”  
“Family caretaker,” the other smiled tightly at him. “A little... overzealous about protecting the family and its holdings, really. Once we tell him Sam is under the Danvers care, he'll protect him just like he was my brother.” He patted the hood of the car. “It'll be fine.”  
“Right,” he said, warily.  
A curtain on one of the upper floors shifted, and he blinked. There really was someone in this old monstrosity of a house, waiting for them.  
“If I get murdered in your horror movie house, I’m haunting your ass,” Sam muttered, slinging his backpack over his shoulder, and followed Caleb up the overgrown path towards the house.  
“Deal,” Caleb grinned.  
Dean groaned, and followed them both – but not before checking that he did, in fact, have his mother-of-pearl-handled gun shoved in the back of his jeans. Just in case.  
There was no electricity in the house, naturally, but there were oil burning lamps spaced on the stairs, just close enough that one wasn't likely to trip and plunge to their death in the dark, but far enough apart that there were dark, cloying shadows between. They walked up the narrow, creaking, curved staircase, one after each other, Caleb in the lead. As they reached the second floor, he called, “Gorman? You here?”  
“Who's with you?”  
The voice was infinitely old sounding, deep and gravelly like a voice that had never aged but had simply always been old, since time itself had begun. It had come from a man standing on the top of another narrow staircase, a rifle cradled in the crook of his arm, waiting. His face was like his voice – impossible to put an actual number to, but infinitely old and unchanging. So this was Gorman.  
“Sam and Dean Winchester,” Caleb answered. “They're friends.”  
“Winchesters aren't friends,” Gorman narrowed his eyes. “They're hunters. Have always been hunters.”  
Sam's hand found Dean's arm, and he squeezed tight. Cover's blown, that squeeze said.  
Of course, Dean hadn't exactly gotten around to telling Sam that not only had the cover already been blown with Caleb, but they were standing in the frontier home of a whole family of witch vampires. He probably should get on that, but how exactly do you explain having absolutely no desire to kill a witch-vampire when you can't even figure it out yourself? Once he knew why he didn't mind 'sleeping with the enemy', so to speak, he'd let Sammy know, too.  
“I'm aware,” Caleb said calmly.  
And that cat was out of the bag now, too. Dammit.  
Gorman's narrow, beetle like eyes flicked towards Dean, then Sam. When they settled on Sam, those dark eyes widened sharply, startled, and he practically saw the old man making a mental note to talk to Caleb about him later. That was a sort of ominous thing, wasn't it?  
But he stepped back, lowering the rifle, and nodded. “Come in.”  
Caleb grinned, and led the others into a room that was apparently Gorman's quarters.  
The room was low, with a slanted ceiling and small windows, though a massive fireplace dominated the entire far wall. The furniture here was old, dark, and dusty, and scattered across the massive table were odd bits and bobs. Dean recognized a lot of them, even knew what a lot of them were used for, but they were for voodoo, not straight witchcraft. Odd, he was pretty sure Caleb didn't use – oh. So that was how a wizened old man was the guardian of an entire covenant of powerful Haxons. There was a massive set of medical equipment set up in the corner, turned off now, but clearly well maintained, in case it was needed.  
Dean remembered how Caleb had said Haxons age too fast if they don't feed. Was that equipment there in case one of the Covenant aged before their time? He had a momentary flash image of Caleb, dark chocolate eyes filmed by cataracts, hunched and wheezing, an old man by twenty five.  
He was a little alarmed by the way his heart clenched at the thought.  
“We're staying here?” Sammy sounded skeptical. He sank into an old worn couch that sat in front of the roaring fire, nose crinkled in distaste. It did sort of smell like old man up here.  
“At least until we hear from dad.” He hesitated, and glanced at Caleb. “There cell reception out here?”  
“Yeah,” he nodded. “No problem.”  
Gorman abruptly swore, bolting towards the windows.  
At least, Dean sort of assumed he swore, because what he said sounded sort of like French, only not exactly, and while he got the distinct impression that what the old man had said was in no way polite, he wasn't exactly sure what he had said.  
“What is it?” Caleb frowned, following the other man to the window, peering out of it over Gorman's shoulder. “I don't see anything.”  
“There,” he pointed sharply, displeased.  
“I don't – there's someone out there. Dean.” Caleb glanced at him. “Will you come help?”  
He nodded, immediately, and tugged the gun out of the back of his pants. “Sam, stay here.”  
“I can take care of myself!”  
“I'm aware of that. Now take care of yourself here, and behave. Let Gorman keep control here. Me and Caleb will take care of this one.”  
Sam grumbled, and sat, crossing his arms.  
Dean nodded at Caleb, and together the two of them darted down the two sets of stairs, and out of the frontier house. They moved carefully across the weed covered lawn, moving as silently as they could through the overgrowth, then past the fence. Caleb murmured, “He was there, towards that copse of trees...”  
He nodded, frowning. “I see what you mean.”  
“Please don't shoot me,” he added, holding up his hand. “But this part is going to look a little... unusual.”  
“What, it's magic time?” he smirked.  
“Yeah. It's magic time.” Caleb nodded, slightly flushed, and his eyes seemed to change. It was like fire flared across his eyes, and where the flames passed, it left behind a darkness, until his eyes were completely black and empty, like a bottomless pit. The light didn't reflect off of the blackness, it was just as though all light got sucked into the depths of his eyes and went there to die. He'd only ever seen eyes like that on demons before – but if what Caleb said was true, then those men and women weren't demons. They were Haxons.  
“Damn,” Dean murmured. “No kidding, I really kinda want to shoot you right now.”  
He snorted. “Try not to. Try to shoot the other guy.”  
“I can do that,” he smirked, and moved forward, keeping low to the ground.  
Caleb was doing some kind of obscuring thing, making their footsteps silent, masking their path. It was a handy little trick, one that Dean wished he had access to on a more regular basis, for sure. But it was still a little unnerving. They darted through the scrub brushes, around the trunks of the trees, until they emerged in the area where the stranger had been lurking.  
They'd been moving silently, they shouldn't have been seen coming.  
But the person was waiting for them.  
Caleb stumbled first, letting out a sharp cry of pain that seemed out of place, because as far as Dean could see, there was nothing that should have brought him down. But his foot had caught in a small flowering shrub of some kind, and he was lying on his side, shaking like he'd been shot or something.  
“What the hell...” Dean doubled back to try and tug the other up.  
“Wild roses,” he rasped. “He knows we're Haxons...”  
“I'm not a Haxon,” he muttered, but got the point, and darted to the side when he almost sensed, rather than heard, the gun go off behind them.  
The bullet pinged harmlessly against a tree trunk, and Dean rolled to the side, determined to get both himself and Caleb out of the way of the shooter, just in case. Swearing under his breath, he tugged Caleb up, away from the wild roses. He'd heard rumours before that wild roses caused harm to witches, but he'd never actually known for sure whether or not it was true – seemed that it was, but he suspected it was only true because Caleb was a Haxon, not because he was just a witch. It was because he was some kind of immortal vampire witch thing.  
Whipping his own gun out, Dean spun to face the stranger that had been firing at them.  
It was a man, tall and seriously muscular, head completely shaved and bald. But what caught Dean off guard the most was that the tall man's eyes had no pupils, no sclera, they were just blank white and exactly the opposite of Caleb's eyes.  
The gunman hesitated when he saw Dean.  
And Dean took advantage of that momentary hesitation, that brief moment of time in which he wasn't at the top of his game, and fired at the stranger, taking a sort of sick sense of satisfaction from the way he cried out and reeled back, shoulder already bleeding. It wasn't a fatal wound because, hunter of not, Dean wasn't about to shoot the guy.  
Partially because he didn't kill humans.  
Partially because there was one little thought at the back of his mind that bothered him - “Nightshades have white eyes,” Caleb had said. “Nightshades are extinct.”  
But if Nightshades had white eyes, then Caleb was wrong.  
But he did duck down to throw Caleb's arm across his shoulders, and hauled him up, to his feet, hauling him towards the house.  
“I'll do it,” the witch gasped, breathlessly, and abruptly black smoke seemed to curl around them, then they disappeared, and reappeared in the centre of Gorman's little living quarters.  
Sam let out a yowl of shock and horror, bolting back in his seat.  
“Son of a bitch!” Dean cried out, startled. “That was fucking weird!”  
“You just bamfed!” Sam yelled, flailing. “You just full on pulled a Nightcrawler! What's wrong with you people?! That's not normal witch stuff!”  
“That's Haxon stuff, Sammy,” he sighed, and lowered the witch to the floor, sitting beside him. “Are you okay?”  
“No.” He groaned, but reached down to carefully pick thorns out of his pant legs, wincing every time he touched one.  
“Stop that,” Dean swatted the other's hand away, and bent to pluck the thorns out himself. “Look, if just getting tangled in that bush was enough to get you in that much pain, then clearly touching them is stupid as fuck. Now just... sit still. Do you need something else? Does Gorman have something you need, or...?”  
Caleb glanced at Sam, then back at Dean, clearing his throat. “No, not exactly...”  
He frowned for a moment, then realization dawned on him, and he lowered his voice to murmur, “You need to feed, don't you?”  
He cleared his throat again, and nodded.  
“Right. Sammy!” When his brother stood and headed over towards the pair, he glanced up at him. “Beat it.”  
Sam blinked at him. “...what?”  
“Go explore. Somewhere. Go do something. Find something to occupy yourself with. I need to talk to Caleb, and I need to do it without you sitting here spying in on everything we're saying. So beat it.”  
“You're so... augh.” His baby brother gave up on what he might have been about to say, and headed for the stairs, thumping down them, sort of a passive aggressive move.  
“I'm going to ensure that your guest from outside doesn't cause us any other problems,” Gorman grumbled, that rifle back over his arm again as he headed downstairs. In his other hand, there were several small bags, and Dean recognized them easily as hex bags. “Try not to do anything too stupid, Caleb.”  
“Thanks, Gorman,” he said sarcastically.  
Dean removed the last of the thorns, and ran his palms up the other's legs to make sure they were gone. “Feeling better?”  
“Yes, but... “ He cleared his throat.  
“I know. You need blood.” Dean sighed heavily, and tilted his jaw up. “Go on, then.”  
“Way to make it sound like it's a hardship,” he groaned, but was smirking slightly as he squirmed forward carefully, and cupped Dean's jaw with trembling hands. “Besides, I like a little foreplay in my blood sucking.”  
“How would you know,” he snorted. “I'm the only person you've ever drank from.”  
“Yeah,” he agreed, laying feather light kisses down Dean's jaw. “And I really liked it.”  
“Of course you did,” he murmured, eyes sliding shut.  
“You taste amazing,” he groaned softly, trailing a trail of kisses down his throat, down to the hollow of his throat. “Absolutely amazing. I just want to eat you all up...”  
“Isn't that what you're planning on doing?” Dean smirked.  
“Something like that, yeah,” Caleb murmured, and gently pressed his teeth against the hollow of the other's throat. For a moment, it was just normal human teeth pressed against his skin, then he felt the shift in the other's mouth, as teeth abruptly slid down, slowly, over top of the other teeth, and those sharp, needle like fangs pierced Dean's throat.  
He sucked in a sharp breath, arching into the other's hands, groaning.  
Caleb chuckled softly against his skin, sucking gently at Dean's skin, trying to make the blood flow under his teeth, to open up those delicate veins, to flood his mouth with the sharp, coppery taste of blood.  
Dean just groaned, clutching at the other's shoulders, eagerly. He felt amazing. Incredible. It made his blood sing, apparently, to pour itself down into Caleb's mouth. And yeah, he was hard as rocks in his jeans, and he was shaking as he clutched at the other man, but apparently something in his libido had a thing for vampires.  
“Okay,” Caleb's voice broke his thoughts, and he started. He hadn't even realized the other had removed his fangs.  
Caleb had life to his face again, his eyes bright and normal chocolate again, and he smiled, cheeks flushed. It was like Dean's blood had given him life again. Well, technically, Dean supposed, that's what blood did to vampires, so yeah, he had just sort of given the other man life. Crazy. “How are you feeling?” he was asking, his fingers sliding over Dean's short hair.  
“I feel great,” Dean laughed softly, closing his eyes. “But that may be the blood loss talking.”  
He snorted, still stroking the other's hair.  
“Okay. Okay. We can... call Sammy back now... call Gorman back... where's Gorman?”  
“Outside, remember? He went to see if he could find the - “  
Whatever Caleb had been about to say, he was cut off by a series of gunshots from outside the house. It was a rapid stream of gunfire, definitely not from a rifle, though there was, abruptly, a rifle shot as well, then another.  
“Son of a bitch,” Dean scrambled to his feet, grabbed the back of a chair to keep from falling over when he realized that was a bad idea. He did have blood loss, he was light headed and dizzy. “Sam! Sam Winchester, get your ass up here, get up here now!”  
Caleb scrambled up behind him, moving to the windows to check on his caretaker.  
“Sam!” he howled.  
“I'm here!” His little brother scrambled up the stairs, face pale. “Holy fuck, Dean, what kind of place did you bring us to?! There's a goddamn altar downstairs! There's a Book of Damnation! Like... we're not talking little tiny witches here, we're talking big time don't need ingredients to do incredible unimaginable thing witches and holy crap the book talks about things that haven't even happened yet and why the fuck is my name in it?!”  
Sam's voice had been getting steadily higher and louder the more he panicked, until it seemed like his brother's voice could pierce eardrums. But even more alarming was the way the environment around them seemed to be shifting the more Sam screamed.  
The fire, which had been crackling away merrily before, just a little thing to warm the dark space, was huge now, roaring right out of its confines in the fireplace, arching up into the space, like it was a hungry beast determined to burn down the house itself. It roared and arched and hissed and spit like an angry cat, and every little candle around the around was roaring up as well, like they were trying to become torches, like they were trying to take over. The fire was becoming like a wild thing, trying to take control and take on a life of its own.  
“Calm down,” Caleb said, firmly.  
“Don't tell me to calm down, I’m in your Book of Damnation!” Sam screamed, furiously.  
His eyes were black.  
Just like Caleb's had been outside, earlier, his eyes were jet black and took all of the light into themselves. They were all consuming.  
“Holy fuck,” Dean breathed, shocked. “Sammy, calm down. Sammy.”  
His brother looked at him, sharply, those black eyes wide and alarmed, but he did slowly seem to relax, and as he did, flames seemed to chase their way across his eyes, and the black faded, and was gone.  
“Come here,” he ordered.  
He hesitated, and came closer to his brother, wincing when Dean tugged him closer, checking on him, frowning. “Dean? Seriously, what...”  
“Just... breathe.” He said, firmly.  
“I'm breathing,” Sam said, but he seemed to be working too hard to breathe. It was like he was asthmatic, but he knew his brother wasn't.  
The flames around the room slowly receded, until the First House was no longer in danger of burning down, and Dean's shoulders slumped in relief. “We'll figure it out, Sammy, but right now we gotta make sure we're safe.”  
“But Dean, the Book - “ Sam tried again.  
“But Sam, people shooting,” he countered, and was relieved he had finally recovered enough to grab his brother's shoulder and push him towards the stairs again. “What's the safest place, Caleb?”  
“Basement where Sam was can be fortified,” Caleb followed and Dean felt the moment Caleb's eyes flared and magic curled around him, lending him strength.  
“There's also only one way out,” Sam pointed out. “Not smart.”  
“Well, I can still get us out,” the witch protested.  
“Yeah, with freaky magic,” Sam muttered. “How come he's not full of holes, Dean?”  
Maybe for the same reason you aren't, Sammy? “It's complicated. And if that guy throws wild roses down there, Caleb, we're screwed. No go on the basement.”  
“Then back in the attic was safest.”  
“Fine. Basement it is.” Dean sighed. He wanted to see this infamous alter and the Book of Damnation, anyway.  
The basement of this house didn't really belong to it. Oh sure, it was underneath it, but nothing about it made sense. The styles were wrong. A realistic basement for this house would have been a short root cellar with a dirt floor and regional stone walls. Instead, the basement was deeper than any of the other floors was tall, walls made of massive stone blocks that should have been impossible to build with when this building was put together. A stone staircase curled around the edge of the round room, and Dean felt like they were descending into something that was a cross between a Medieval castle hold and the Batcave.  
Curved bookshelves lined one wall, but in the centre of the room was a massive stone circle ringed by thousands of candles, the flames of which flickered and dipped in the movement of the air caused by their entry.  
In that centre of that stone circle, a book floated.  
“Holy shit,” Dean breathed, and moved closer to it, fingers reaching out.  
“Don't touch that!” Caleb cried.  
He paused, and glanced back at him. “What, it's that special of a thing that not just anyone can touch it?”  
“It's that cursed of a thing that only Haxons can touch it,” Caleb answered, flushed, as he slipped past Dean to carefully pick up the book. It was massive, and took a lot of effort to actually lift the tome.  
“...I touched it,” Sam said, quietly. He was pale, paler than Dean had seen in a long time.  
“Yes, well....” Caleb hesitated.  
“I saw the eyes, Caleb,” Dean sat heavily on one of the stones that ringed the alter, holding out a hand towards his brother. He wasn't really surprised when his pale, trembling brother pressed against his side, swallowing. “Tell us the truth, here.”  
Caleb sat on the alter itself, which made Dean think it wasn't really the ceremonial thing he'd thought it was, and turned the book towards them. “This is the Book of Damnation.”  
“The Devil's Book that John Putnum had Mary Worth write her name in.” Sam burst out.  
Caleb hesitated. “Sort of.”  
The pages suddenly started flicking past, too fast, then the book fell open to a page, blank except for a faded, childish scrawl that read 'Mary Worth'. “Only she didn't sell her soul to the devil to gain powers. We can't do that. She sold her soul to John Putnum. Mary Worth was his second donor.”  
“Donor?” Sam repeated.  
“I thought you guys only took one,” Dean scowled. “Covenant of Silence and all that.”  
The witch looked up, dark eyes conflicted. “Why do you think my ancestors turned him over to the witch hunters? We take our Covenant very seriously. I told you, Dean. We're not like other Haxons.”  
He nodded, quietly.  
“Donors?” The younger Winchester interrupted again, frowning.  
Caleb sighed softly, then quietly explained what “vampire” really meant, again.  
By the time he was done, Sam looked like he had no blood left in his face. “But I don't – I mean... what does this have to do with me? Why am I in the Book of Damnation, then?”  
The pages of the book flicked again, until it fell open to what looked like an old school lithograph – only it was a drawing of Sam, in his Spencer's Uniform.  
“That's downright freaky,” Dean declared.  
“It can be... unsettling.” Caleb agreed, and the page turned itself again.  
Samuel Winchester. The page read. Born May 2, 1983, at the hour of seven and twenty three in the evening. Will ascend May 2, 2001, at the hour of seven and twenty three in the evening.  
“Ascend,” Sam murmured. “You said that Haxons, on their eighteenth birthday...”  
“Come into their full power,” Caleb nodded.  
Dean waited for his brother to connect the dots and tried to figure out how the hell to explain this to dad.  
“So on my birthday next week...” Sam said slowly.  
“Eighteen years from the moment you were born, you will ascend.” Caleb nodded, and the Book of the Damnation snapped shut. “You're a Haxon, Sam.”  
“That's not possible!” He protested, voice cracking. “No vampire ever turned me!”  
“Haxons are born, Sam, not made,” Dean reminded him.  
“Well, but – then – is it some random thing?!”  
“Gods no,” Caleb snorted, watching as the Book flew across the room, settling itself on one of the bookshelves. “It's hereditary.”  
“Then why isn't Dean one?”  
Caleb looked up, considering Dean for a long moment. “Maybe you had different fathers?”  
“No.” Dean said firmly.  
“Impossible.” Sam nodded.  
“I don't know, then.” Caleb said quietly. “I don't even know why Sam is in the book. Only our Covenant shows up in there, and then... here he is.” He held out his hands. “Unless you're descendents of one of the other families or the Putnums or something, I don't know...”  
“I doubt that.” Dean snorted. “You heard Gorman. We're Winchesters. Winchesters are hunters.”  
“What about your mother's family?”  
Sam blinked up at Dean. “I don't know.”  
“Mary Campbell.”  
“Never heard the name,” Caleb frowned, considering that. “But I could look - “  
The basement door slammed open, and they all bolted to their feet.  
But it was Gorman who stepped onto the stairs. There was blood smeared on his forehead, but he held his rifle still, and his expression was unimpressed. “Caleb.”  
“Yeah?” He stepped forward, brows furrowed.  
“I need to speak to you.” He looked pointedly at the Winchesters. “Alone.”  
“I'll be right back.” He said quietly, and headed up the stairs. The door closed with a final sound behind them, and Dean wondered for a moment if they were meant to just leave them down here forever. That'd deal with the Hunter problem easily enough.  
“I can't be a witch, Dean.” Sam said, breaking the silence, voice trembling.  
“Sam, when you freaked out earlier, your eyes went black. Remember your freaky dream? Looks like we know why you dreamed about having black eyes but not being possessed.”  
“Yeah, but I dreamed you had white eyes. Which you don't.”  
He hesitated.  
The man he'd shot earlier, the one Gorman had been fighting... He'd had white eyes, exactly like Sam had been talking about. Like the extinct Nightshades.  
“Dean?” Sam asked, quietly.  
“I don't know, Sammy,” he admitted.  
Things were starting to make sense, in a way that couldn't possibly make sense.  
The door opened, and a pale Caleb stepped into the room. “This homestead has been compromised,” he said, voice sounding sort of hollow, like he was so stunned he just couldn't work it out. “We have to go somewhere safe.”

\---

Drusilla had a habit of bringing home strays. That was, after all, how Spike had ended up travelling with the insane beauty, as immortal as she. He'd been one of her strays.  
That didn't mean he had to like her strays.  
Grumbling, the platinum blond man kicked the booted foot hanging off the end of the bed, and briefly considered claiming those boots for himself before marching to the table where Drusilla sat playing with one of her dolls, and snapped, “And what exactly are we supposed to do with him?”  
“Love him and keep him and train him,” she said, without looking up.  
“Dru,” he snapped, and she looked up, startled.  
“Don't you love our son?” She asked, pouting up at him. “I promised our knight that he'd have a loving father...”  
He groaned. “Dru, why the hell did you turn this guy?”  
“Because he knows so many beautiful, broken things,” She rose, flushed, smiling in delight. “He's hunted down so many beautiful, wonderful things...”  
“Hunted – you turned a goddamn hunter?!” He gaped at her.  
She pressed a finger to her lips. “Shush. You'll wake the baby.”  
“Wake him? I’m going to stake him before he has a chance to freak out and kill us!” He flipped the limp body on the bed onto its back, then froze. “Son of a – Dru, that's John goddamn Winchester!”  
“Mmhmm,” she nodded, rising to lean on his shoulder, looking down at the corpse.  
“You said you were done with this bullshit!”  
Drusilla pouted up at him. “But daddy had such a beautiful plan - “  
“Angel was going to turn this bastard almost twenty years ago,” he roared, furious. “Because he wanted to fuck with his Nightshade wife, remember? It was just because Mary killed Darla, but those goddamn Haxons killed her on him, so he gave up on that plan! Listen to me, Dru.” He cupped her face, expression intent. “The Slayer staked Angel. He's dust. Stop trying to finish a dead Brujah's plan.”  
“But it will be so perfect,” she promised him. “A triumvirate.”  
“None of us are Roman emperors, Dru.”  
“No. The Winchesters.”  
“What?” He frowned at her, not getting what she was trying to say.  
Drusilla darted to sit on the bed, shifting John's head so that it lay in her lap. “Papa John Winchester is a Brujah now, dear Spike.”  
“Yeah, cause you made him into one.”  
“He has two sons,” she smirked. “One ascends next week.”  
Spike hissed, sitting on the edge of the bed. “The son of a bitch had a Haxon son?”  
She nodded, eagerly. “And the other took after his mother.  
“No...” he said, a slow grin spread across his face. “Interesting.”  
“They will change this war completely, Spike,” she promised, stroking John's hair, smiling. “Everything will change because of this... forever.”  
“Perfect place for us to step in,” he smirked. “And change it.”  
“I told you you'd love him,” Drusilla wiggled, eagerly.

\---

The hallway Dean was standing in fairly reeked of old world money. The floors, walls, and ceiling were all paneled in a polished wood so dark it was almost black, and the narrow rugs that ran the length of the hall probably cost more than Sammy's entire tuition for the year at that fancy school of his. Disapproving looking ancestors hung on the wall, and Dean leaned on the door frame, overwhelmed and out of place.  
He supposed he should have known the Danvers were loaded. Still.  
Caleb slipped out of the door Dean was leaning beside, and clicked the door shut. He slumped against the wall beside him, and sighed heavily. “Hey.”  
“Hey.” Dean glanced at the witch. “What'd they say?”  
“They're - “ he hesitated. “Cautious. The last time a new Haxon showed up and went all 'I’m in your Covenant now', he tried to kill us and our friends. Understandably, I think, the others are rather reluctant to just say 'okay, come on in'.”  
“Even that Reid guy I keep seeing Sammy texting?” He smirked.  
Caleb snorted. “Reid's ecstatic.”  
“What, is there just something about vampires that makes them gay?” Dean asked cheekily, smirking slightly as he leaned back. He'd caught part of the conversation when Caleb had been talking behind that closed door, before, and he was pretty sure that the blond brat wanted his baby brother. And he sort of thought Sam might want him back.  
“You're not one of us.” Caleb shifted so that he faced Dean, pressed against his chest. “What's your excuse?”  
“You're the witch. You tell me.”  
He snorted, peppering light kisses up Dean's jaw. “As delicious as you are, I didn't cast a spell on you so you'd want me.” Caleb drawled. “Pretty sure that was your own fault.”  
“Hm.” He smirked, then his smile faded as he sighed.  
Caleb lifted his head. “That doesn't sound like 'oh yeah, Caleb, that's the spot'. What's wrong?”  
“I'm worried about my father.”  
“Oh.” He hesitated. “Still no word?”  
“Nothing.”  
“And I guess he's not the kind to just disappear like this...”  
“Oh no.” Dean snorted. “He totally is. My father is known to disappear for weeks at a time, then stumble in the door like nothing happened and tell us it's time to go. But never after an emergency call, and absolutely never after spotting the yellow-eyed demon.”  
Caleb hesitated. “Except - “  
“I know, I know. Brujahs have yellow eyes. Demons have red eyes.” Dean leaned back, unconsciously baring his throat to the Haxon. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately. John would never forgive him if he knew. “But that could just mean my father's been attacked by a bunch of Brujah.”  
Caleb kissed Dean, softly. “If your father is half the hunter you are...”  
He tugged the other closer, and said bluntly, “Caleb, if my father is half the hunter I am right now, then he's a vampire himself already.”

\---

John had learned several things that morning.  
First had been that he no longer had a pulse or the need to breathe, and that he was stronger and faster than he had been before.  
Second had been that he was starving and that he desperately craved blood.  
Third had been that blood tasted disgustingly good, like a Big Mac that you can taste the grease and fat in, yet eat anyway because it's just so damn good.  
Fourth was that he'd never been hunting a demon at all.  
He slammed his shoulder into the door of the motel suite he shared with his sons, grunting with satisfaction when the door splintered and fell open under the force. Knocking the pieces aside, he stepped in, drawing in the scent of himself and his sons, familiar yet strange. He smelled differently now. More detailed.  
“You know, you did have the key. Could have just unlocked it.” Spike drawled from the entrance. “Good job, parrot.”  
Fifth thing John had learned was that he hated Spike.  
“Invite us in, lovely,” Dru called from beside Spike, laying her hands on the invisible barrier that kept her out. She'd explained this patiently to John, earlier. Brujahs need an invite to a home, Haxons need an invite into a church, Nightshades need no invites. “Say 'you're invited into my home'.”  
“You're invited into my home,” he said, immediately.  
Spike snickered, and slipped past Dru into the room. “Parrot,” he drawled.  
He ground his teeth slightly, and headed to get his equipment. John may be one of the enemy now, a vampire, a Brujah, a living undead... but he was still John Winchester, hunter, and this whole... change had thrown some things into crystal clarity.  
He'd always assumed that vampires just craved blood and that was it, that he'd become a mindless slave to his lust for blood. But Spike and Dru had been quick to set him straight. So long as he made sure to keep himself fed properly, he wasn't some deranged monster – he was a smarter, faster, stronger, more skilled, more focused version of the same man he'd ever been. He figured he could deal with this.  
Apparently he had never been hunting a demon.  
Every time he thought he'd gotten close to the trail of the yellow-eyed son of a bitch, he'd just been close to yet another Brujah. It bothered him, how many vampires he could have killed over the past eighteen years. But even if he wasn't likely to kill any Brujah now – hard when he was one, himself – Drusilla had told him where his sons where – under the thrall of a Haxon.  
No son of his was going to be the bitch of a vampire witch.  
She'd explained the war, sort of in passing, but John frankly didn't care which side of a species civil war he was apparently on. He just cared that he was a hunter, and his sons were being held captive by witches.  
So he'd be helping the war effort. Good for him.  
He was just doing right by his boys.

\---

For a man as large as this one was – broad shoulders and muscles that strained under a tight white t-shirt, not girth – it was almost impossible to believe that he was moving as silently as he was. But his massive boots made no sound on the gravel as he walked, frowning seriously.  
He circled the black Chevy Impala where it sat, out of place, on the driveway of the massive, centuries old manor house that loomed over them. He ran his fingertips lightly over the hood, then lay the flat of his palm against the smooth black metal, frowning.  
There was movement in one of the windows above, and he smirked, turning his head slowly to look up at the window.  
He didn't mind in the slightest if Dean Winchester knew he was there.

\---

If Dean never caught his brother making out with that blond weasel Draco Malfoy wannabe again, it was too soon.  
Oh sure, he wanted his baby brother to be happy, and he was fine with him being happy with a vampire witch boy – be a little hypocritical of him if he wasn't, really – but that also didn't mean he had to watch him be happy. When he came stumbling downstairs from a bad night's sleep – mostly because he'd seen that white eyed son of a bitch by his car – the very last thing he needed was teenagers participating in public displays of affection. Especially when one of the affectionate ones was his baby brother. They'd been in the living room, too, naturally the first room he'd walked into, and the much smaller Reid had Sammy pinned against some old mouldy stuffed cheetah. Who made choices like that, with their mornings, really?  
Of course, Sammy had spluttered, all flushed and embarrassed, and tried to pretend it had never happened before. But Dean could see the possessive way Reid had his arm curled around his brother's waist, and the dark bruise at the base of Sam's throat mirrored the one on Dean's.  
The instinct to hunt – kill – destroy surged up in Dean when he saw actual evidence that the blond brat had been drinking from his charge, it really did.  
But there was something devious to Reid's smirk, as though he knew what Dean was thinking, and lifted his jaw. There was a purpling bruise on Reid's throat, too.  
Sammy had started drinking.  
“You're not the kind of vampire that turns people into other vampires, are you?” Dean grumbled, sitting heavily at the kitchen table.  
Caleb blinked at him. “Haxon are born, Dean, not - “  
“I know.” He buried his face in his hands, groaning. “I think I know more about vampires now than I ever wanted to know.”  
“Why do you ask, though?”  
“Because I’m starting to feel like a freak for not being a bloodsucker?”  
Caleb snorted, and set a plate of fried eggs and slightly burnt bacon in front of Dean, with a hurried apology that their housekeeper wasn't in yet, so he'd had to do the cooking himself. Of course Caleb had a housekeeper, Dean smirked slightly. There was no way that alcoholic mother of his kept this house in this beautiful state. The woman hadn't pulled herself out of a bottle once since he'd met her. “There's nothing wrong with you being human. Personally, I think you're delicious just the way you are.”  
Dean snorted. “Yeah, cause I’d probably taste like ass if I was undead.”  
“I wouldn't know,” Caleb laughed, eating a forkful of eggs.  
“Yeah, cause I took your blood-drinking cherry,” Dean smirked, eating his own food. It wasn't as good as his own cooking – he'd gotten a lot of experience, cooking for Sammy – but it wasn't half bad. A little overdone, yeah, but edible. “But based on the way my brother and Reid are going at it... I think even Haxon blood tastes kinda awesome.”  
“Reid and Sam have...” he blinked.  
“In your living room. Against that god awful cheetah.”  
“He has got some kind of sick obsession with that thing.” Caleb grumbled, displeased. “Ever since we were kids. He's stolen it twice... I’m half tempted to let him keep it next time he tries.”  
Dean snorted.  
“So,” Caleb said, casually. Or he tried to be casual, anyway. “Have you heard anything from your father?”  
Dean's smile faded, and he shook his head. “No. nothing. I’m trying not to worry, because, well, like I said, he goes missing for weeks at a time. It isn't exactly new. But I – well, what if something happened to him?”  
Caleb nodded, soberly, then said, “Sam's birthday is tomorrow.”  
“Yeah, I know.” He picked at the table. “Tomorrow, Sammy grows up and becomes a full fledged, grown up, needs-to-drink-blood-to-stay-alive vampire witch. I’m trying to not freak the fuck out about that, actually.”  
“Well, the ascension itself is kind of... private.” Caleb hesitated. “Though, I suppose, considering the circumstances, you can be there.”  
“Thanks,” he said, sarcastically.  
“This is a big deal, Dean.” He flushed. “Our Covenant has been closed for centuries. It keeps us safe. To open the ranks and let in a new fifth line...”He shook his head, slightly pale. “The ramifications could be huge.”  
“There you go using your rich boy words again,” he joked lamely. “But I get it. Believe me, I get it.”  
“Yeah. That's why I was thinking we need some, ah, stress relief, first.”  
He smirked. “Back upstairs, then?”  
“No... birthday party for Sam tonight, at the Dells.”  
“Birthday party?” He repeated.

\---

It had been planned by Tyler, apparently, and it was really less of a party and more of a casual experiment in hedonism.  
Dean wandered through the trees, feet rolling slightly on the sandy soil, people watching. There were more high schoolers here than he would have expected, mostly because this was supposed to be a party for a Winchester. Sure, he figured that most of them were here because it was put on by the “Sons of Ipswich” - god it sounded like the witches were in a boy band – or because it was an excuse to party, but earlier he'd watched his brother greeting people and he'd been stunned by how many Sammy seemed to actually know. It seemed that his little geekboy brother, while not exactly popular, actually had friends.  
Go figure.  
There were bonfires scattered on the beach, and that was where most of the crowd had gathered, warming their cold fingers at the flickering flames, laughing and occasionally moving to the music that some college drop out stoner was playing from a makeshift DJ station.  
Dean was avoiding the fires. He wasn't really sure why, but he wanted to be... away.  
And then, he heard the footsteps behind him.  
Looking back on the moment, knowing then what he had no idea of at the time, Dean would have known that the footstep had been very deliberate, a decisive sound made with the express purpose of making Dean turn around. But naturally, he didn't know that yet.  
It was the man that Dean had shot, that had shot at him, that had plagued his sleep for the last week by just standing outside by his car, then naturally being gone the moment Dean got outside. The white eyed man.  
His eyes weren't white now, they were blue and sharp, and when Dean met those eyes, he was smirking.  
He pulled his knife – a good one, but not the gun he wished it was, goddamned morals about bringing weapons to a teenaged birthday party – Dean leapt at the man.  
And then met the force of someone who had been waiting for him to come at him.  
The man's large hands caught Dean's wrists, spinning him faster than the human eye could possibly see, slamming his back hard against a tree. Dean gasped, startled by both the strength and the speed. “Let me go!” He howled.  
The man's eyes flared white, then, and Dean sucked in a sharp breath.  
It was strange – when he saw the witch's eyes flare, a deep part of him, no matter how much he told himself these were his friends, his family, told himself to hunt down and kill. When this man's eyes flared, his every instinct screamed at him to respect his man, to beg him for... something. He had no idea what his instincts wanted from him, and Dean wasn't exactly in the habit of begging anyone for anything.  
“Do you even know,” the man growled, holding Dean up by his wrists, feet off the ground, pinning him to the tree trunk with his chest. “How hard it is to be the last of anything?”  
Panting, Dean offered, “...no?”  
Abruptly, the man grinned, those blank white eyes more expressive and devious than they had any right to be, and said, “Oh, you will.”  
Dean wanted to ask him what the hell he was talking about.  
He never got that chance.  
Because the man slammed Dean harder against the tree, and opened his mouth to roar, an extra set of teeth, all razors and spikes and tearing and piercing, descended over his human teeth, making him look like some sort of wild animal that was masquerading as a human. Ignoring Dean's attempted shout for help, this vampire darted forward, sinking those vicious fangs into Dean's throat.  
He howled, arching up under his grip. The worst part, as far as Dean was concerned, was not that a vampire was drinking his blood, because that had actually been happening a lot lately.  
It was that he enjoyed it when this vampire bit him. As much as when Caleb did, even.  
I am a whole new level of freaky, he thought, deliriously, as he clung to the man's shoulders. When had he released his wrists? More importantly, when had Dean started moaning like a whore and grinding against the man drinking his blood? He was willing to accept that maybe he wasn't thinking straight because of blood loss, but good lord, this was something else again, wasn't it?  
Abruptly, the vampire pulled back, and Dean groaned in loss, trying to pull him closer again. “No...”  
“We're not done,” he said, voice a low gravelly rumble, and kissed Dean again, fiercely.  
He surged into this kiss, desperate, tasting his own blood on the man's lips.  
“That's right,” he rumbled, lifting his own chin. “C'mon, show me your teeth...”  
What followed next was a bizarre sort of feeling. On one hand, it felt new and bizarre and wholly unpleasant, but on the other it felt natural and even normal and like he'd been waiting his whole life to do this. There was a movement under his skin, then Dean brushed his tongue along the fronts of a new set of teeth, all animal and cruel.  
“That's what I’m talkin' 'bout.” The man grinned, and tapped his own throat. “C'mon, big boy.”  
He didn't hesitate.  
Maybe it was the blood-loss that said 'Fuck yes, this sounds like a brilliant idea'. Maybe it was instinct. At the time, he didn't really care what it was.  
He surged forward, and sank those shiny new fangs into the man's throat, and groaned deeply when the taste of blood exploded on his tongue.

\---

“Still nothing?” Caleb asked, concerned.  
Sam shook his head, turning his cell phone over and over in his fingers. He was pale and drawn.  
Some birthday this was – at nine o'clock tonight he was going to ascent as a full fledged vampire-witch Haxon, his father had been missing for close to a week after allegedly seeing the yellow-eyes, and now his older brother went missing at his birthday party.  
Reid leaned on his shoulder, looping his arms loosely around him. “You got a bead on his blood, Caleb... why aren't you just magicking him back?”  
“Because I don't have a bead on him.” Caleb scowled at him. “Apparently.”  
“He's your first blood!” Tyler gaped at Caleb, swinging his legs off the table. “What do you mean, you ain't got a hold on him?!”  
“I mean there is something blocking me!” He snapped.  
“Like Chase blocked you?” Reid frowned.  
“Caleb wasn't drinking from Chase, Reid, it's different,” Tyler rolled his eyes.  
“Not that different,” he grumbled, then muttered, “Chase drank from me.”  
“Join the club,” Pogue grumbled, pressing a mug of coffee into Caleb's hands, then sank into the chair beside his. It was a weird thought, to have the five of them around the table, all five members of the Ipswich covenant, finally having all of the elements represented again, to have all five points for their circle. But it was a comfort, if nothing else. It was strength personified, to have a full five point.  
“Well, what the hell blocks the first blood link?” Tyler snapped.  
Pogue frowned. “Other Haxons?”  
“If there were other Haxons in Ipswich, we'd know,” Caleb said dismissively. “There are other spells that could do it, amulets...”  
“Brujahs,” Sam said, suddenly.  
“What?” Reid gaped at his – was he his boyfriend, now? - boyfriend in confusion.  
“I was doing research,” the Winchester said, flushing slightly when the others looked at him. “Hey, I was raised hunter. When in doubt, research the hell out of things. Anyway, you said there was a war going on, so I researched. There was a case in Chicago, about five years ago where a hunter ended up in the middle of a vamp battle. A group of Brujah had kidnapped a Haxon's first blood to to use as a hostage, and the Haxons were freaking the hell out because the Brujahs had used some kind of spell to hide them.”  
Caleb hissed. “How'd they break it?”  
“They didn't,” Sam shrugged. “The hunter killed both clans.”  
“That... does not help us.” Tyler blinked.  
“Sure it does,” Pogue frowned. “Means there could be Brujahs here.”  
Reid's grip tightened on Sam's shoulders. “Didn't you say your dad went missing while looking for a yellow eyed demon?”  
“Yeah.”  
Caleb finished the blond Haxon's thoughts for him. “There are no yellow-eyed demons. That was a Brujah.”  
“Well.” Pogue said quietly. “We've avoided the war this long. I suppose it was really only a matter of time before the Brujahs brought the war to us.”  
The eldest of the Covenant had a stern set to his jaw. “They probably figured out that our last is ascending tonight. If they're smart, they'll try to attack before Sam attacks.”  
“So today.” Tyler groaned.  
Reid squeezed Sam. “I ain't letting them have my boyfriend.”  
“I'm intending to be ready for them,” Caleb growled.

\---

“The Haxons will be gathering at the First House tonight,” Spike was explaining, frowning as he paced the small space of their motel room. He would have rathered one of the warehouses along the wharf or something, but Dru had been in one of her 'moods', so they had a motel room with a king sized bed, on which his sire and her other childer sat, watching him. “They'll have your son there.”  
“So that's where we hit them, then,” John frowned.  
“Obviously, parrot.” He rolled his eyes.  
The other man scowled, displeased, but Spike didn't really care. (Look at all the fucks I give.) John could grumble all he wanted, it made no difference to him. He was fine. All he really cared about was the insanity of Dru's plans and fortune-tellings, and whether John followed orders. Damn the war, damn the stupid 'my fangs are bigger than yours' posturing bullshit. Hell, damn the humans, except not really, because he had to eat something and unlike the Haxons and the Nightshades, he actually needed humans to drink from.  
What bothered him was why the hell no one else had ever gone, “Hey, instead of fighting each other, maybe we vampires should join forces and take over the goddamn world, eh?”  
Oh sure, back when Spike had suggested that the first time, and his bastard of a grandsire had been running around killing every Nightshade he could get his hands on, he'd accepted Angel's answer that Nightshades were hardwired to protect humanity. But he'd also listened when Angel told him that Haxons and Brujahs weren't able to live side by side without killing each other, and it wasn't until he'd been a vampire for more than a century before he realized that Angel had been full of shit.  
So if he could question part of what his sire had taught him, he could question all of it.  
“Tell us your delicious plan, dear sweet Spike,” Drusilla beamed, clapping her hands.  
He grinned, wolfishly. “Well, we're definitely gonna get yer son back...”

\---

If asked, Dean could never tell you exactly how he'd ended up in that ratty little motel room, waking up naked and sickly beside a man that was absolutely not his boyfriend.  
He groaned softly, sitting up, and rubbing his brow. It wasn't like any hangover he'd ever had before. His head didn't hurt, it just sort of swam, like he was on too many painkillers or something. His mouth tasted coppery, like he'd been chewing on pennies, and he groaned again, displeased.  
And then the man sleeping beside him moved.  
Dean yelped, and started the scramble off the bed, only to be stilled by a hand catching his wrist. “It's too early fer this bullshit. Calm the fuck down.”  
“Who are you?” Dean demanded, swallowing around the lump in his throat.  
His memories of the night before were a little hazy, but if he remembered what he thought he did correctly, then this man had drank his blood – and Dean had drank his. That was the more disturbing part, if you asked him. He was starting to get used to Caleb drinking his blood, so that he could deal with. Him having fangs and drinking someone else's blood, though... that was a whole new kind of freaky.  
The man considered him for a long moment, those blue eyes hard to read, then he said, “Xander Cage.”  
“You say that like I should know who you are,” Dean grumbled, then abruptly his eyes widened. “Fuck, I do know you! You're that guy with the extreme sporting show a few years back, what the hell was it called... the Xander Zone!”  
The man smirked slightly. “Yeah.”  
“Sammy practically worshiped you, man!” He gaped at him. “Not because of the extreme car tricks, or anything, that's really more of my thing... because you were giving those assholes what for. Didn't you drive the car of that guy that expelled gay students off the pier into the Pacific?”  
“Yeah,” he shrugged. “That was a lifetime ago.”  
“How does a guy like you get turned into a vampire?” Dean gaped at him.  
“I'm a Nightshade.” He said, lazily. “I was born this way.”  
“....Nightshades are extinct.”  
“Surprise. Not quite.”  
Xander sat up, slowly, sheets sliding down his chest to pool at his waist. It was very distracting, actually. Dean didn't really remember realizing that he was gay, but apparently he'd just slipped over that step, because he was definitely enjoying what he was seeing. “Nightshades have long been hunted,” he said, distracting Dean from those delicious abs. “We are the most hunted form of the vampires, because we are the most terrifying. Immortal but still alive.”  
“I thought Nightshades were supposed to be some great defender of humanity,” Dean frowned.  
“Sure,” he shrugged. “If by that you mean we don't feed on humans.”  
He hesitated.  
“We're not some noble 'must save humanity at any cost' knights, or somethin'. We're just vampires, Dean. A fucked up not quite human species that has to drink blood to live. And yeah, I wouldn't say we would, like, hunt down all humans like the Brujah do, or nothin', but we also don't go out of our way to save 'em.”  
“Then why - “ he tried.  
“Because we keep the Haxons and the Brujahs in check.” Xander smirked at him. “We prevent the undead and the witches from taking over the world by eating them.”  
“...eating them.”  
“Brujahs drink from every human they can get their fangs into, Haxons have their little donors, first bloods in they can get their hands on them...” He shrugged. “We drink only from Haxons and Brujahs.”  
“...no wonder yer friggin' extinct.” Dean muttered.  
“Except that we're not, not anymore,” He smirked. “At least we have a fighting chance.”  
“And why is that?” Dean rolled his eyes.  
Xander grinned, wolfishly. “Because you, Dean Winchester, are a Nightshade.”  
Dean stared at him for a full minute before he let out a burst of laughter that sounded almost hysterical. “Me. A vampire. No really, that's rich, tell me more.”  
The other man smirked, then picked up a knife from the bedside table – Dean's knife.  
“Hey, that's - “  
“Shut the hell up for a minute.” Xander grinned, and slashed the inside of his arm with the knife. Blood welled up, crimson and fresh, beading on the wound, then rolling down his arm in heavy droplets. Despite himself, Dean swallowed, his distraction moving from the man's abs to his arm. The older man ran his finger through the blood, then held it up to run it along Dean's lower lip, leaving a crimson streak of iron rich blood across his lip.  
Dean groaned softly, despite himself, and flicked his tongue out, lapping it up.  
“Tastes good, huh?” Xander held up his arm, temptingly. “Come and get it, Dean.”  
Dean could try and deny what was happening all he wanted. It wouldn't do him a lick of good, but he could deny it. What he couldn't deny was that there was a shift in his mouth, and he could feel the fangs sliding out over his own teeth, like a set of hypodermic syringes shooting out from under his gums. Like a fucked up Wolverine, he thought, deliriously.  
“Believe me now?” He drawled.  
He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, clenching his jaws. He could feel the fangs slice the inside of his gums, and his own blood slid through his mouth, which didn't help the situation in the slightest.  
“C'mere,” Xander tugged Dean closer by his wrist, and though he resisted briefly for a moment, he was honestly just a little too freaked out to argue right now.  
He tumbled into the other man's chest, and when Xander pressed that knife wound to his lips, Dean didn't argue. He drank, almost desperately, and groaned in loss when the other vampire – because Dean could only deny it for so long before he started looking like an idiot – slowly tugged his arm away.  
“Greedy brat, ain'tcha?” Xander smirked, ruffling Dean's hair.  
“Right now, I’m just freaking the fuck out, thanks,” Dean snapped, peevishly.  
“C'mon. Nothing's changed. Yer still you. Just an immortal you.” Xander rolled his eyes, just relaxing into the pillows. He curled Dean closer to him, so that they lay together on that bed, fitting together better than they really had any right to, like building blocks designed to fit only one way. “You were born a Nightshade. So nothing's really changed. Well, 'cept that you're gonna need to feed on other vampires. But yer a hunter. It shouldn't be hard for you to track 'em down.”  
“I don't want to be a vampire.” It might have sounded petulant.  
He might not have cared.  
“Too late. Yer fate was decided when Mary Campbell and John Winchester decided to have children.” He hesitated. “Well. I mean, Nightshade children aren't always guaranteed to be Nightshades. Sometimes they're Haxons. Lookit yer brother.”  
“Don't touch my brother.” He growled.  
“the threat is much less impressive when you're curled up naked on top of me.” Xander pointed out.  
“Don't fuckin' touch - “  
“Relax.” Xander snapped. “You are aware that he's your natural prey, now? So is that boyfriend of yours.”  
“I am not going to eat my boyfriend!”  
“Fine. Don't. But he is gonna try to kill you. S'an instinct thing. Soon as he realizes yer a Nightshade, he's gonna try to kill you.”  
“I guess that's something I’m going to have to chance, isn't it?” Dean grumbled, and started crawling off of the other.  
He caught Dean, holding him in place, and just grinned when he glowered at him. “Dunno where you think yer goin', Dean, but it doesn't really work like that. I turned ye. Yer pretty much mine, now.”  
“Oh hell no.”  
Xander's eyes flickered to white for just a moment, and Dean groaned. Every nerve in his body had just lit up like a neon bill board, and he trembled as he clutched at the other man's shoulder, practically grinding against him. “What – the – fuck - “ he panted, breathlessly.  
“Pheromones,” He grinned, and Dean shook his head, trying to clear it. “It's our best weapon.”  
“That doesn't make sense,” he muttered, already feeling much more himself, and humiliated by the idiotic way he'd just been rubbing himself all over Xander. Embarrassing. “How are pheromones a weapon?”  
“That thing I just did to you?” He smirked. “Imagine that, but stronger and for a longer time. Can't fight like that, can ye?”  
He hesitated. “Not well, at least.”  
“Mmhmm. And it don't work on humans. But it works real well on Haxons and Brujahs.”  
He blinked at the larger man. “...that gives whole new meaning to 'playing with your food', doesn't it?”  
Xander barked in laughter.  
Dean groaned, rubbing his forehead. “So that's why Haxons really want us, then?”  
“Yeah.”  
“...why would I really want one of them?” He asked. He was almost afraid of the answer.  
“Because they evolved to fight back,” Xander sighed, settling his hand at Dean's lower back, a decision that made him twitch a little, but otherwise lie still. “They couldn't avoid their reaction to our pheromones, they're just too strong. So they developed pheromones of their own – ones Nightshades are even weaker to.”  
“...are you saying I’m with Caleb because of some animal pheromone thing?”  
“S'a relief, ain't it?”  
“No,” Dean grumbled. “I mean, yeah, that explains why I was totally okay with him bein' a witch and all, and why I kind of fell into bed with him. Wasn't exactly planning that shit, I’m not into men.” He drew a deep breath. “But it isn't just that anymore. I don't want everything to have been because we can't fucking help it!”  
“He know yer a Nightshade?”  
“I didn't even know I was, how the hell would he know?”  
“Then that means he ain't deliberately using it against you. Which means its probably what got yer attention in the first place, and that's about it.” He shrugged. “Or think of it as a real easy way to kink up yer sex life.”  
Dean rolled his eyes. “Thought I belonged to you, now.”  
“You do,” he grinned, wolfishly. “I don't mind sharing some.”  
“Oh great, a kinky son of a bitch,” he muttered.

\---

“I can't do this, Reid.”  
“Sure you can. Nothing to it. You just... ascend. You don't control it, it just sort of happens.”  
“I'm not really sure that's terribly comforting.” Sam muttered. He was crunched down into a narrow corner of the “sitting room” at the First House, not on a chair, but right on the floor. It wasn't that Sam was trying to hide, or anything, not exactly, it's just that he was feeling very lightheaded and was fairly sure that if he tried to sit up, or stand up, he'd puke. “I don't just want to – does it hurt?”  
Reid sat, slowly, between Sam's feet, resting his palms on his boyfriend's calves. “...yeah. It hurts.”  
“Great.” He sighed.  
“It just lasts for a minute or so...” He said, quietly, smiling sheepishly. “It's not a long term thing. And once it's done... it's done. You'll feel a lot better after.”  
“Yeah, unless the Brujahs show up and try to kill me before it starts.”  
“...yeah, there is that...”  
“Sam. Reid.” Caleb stood in the doorway of the sitting room, looking serious. It probably didn't help that Gorman was hovering over his shoulder, glowering at them. “It's ten minutes to.”  
“Yeah, we don't want Sam blowing up the house,” Reid laughed, as he stood, and offered the other his hand.  
Taking his hand, he let him tug him up, blinking at Reid. “...blowing the house up?!”  
Reid smirked, tugging Sam to the stairs. “Yep. C'mon, let's get to the circle.”  
The circle, apparently, was a loosely circular clearing in the middle of the woods outside the first house, with five smooth stones forming the five points of their circle. They each stood on one of them, though Sam felt sort of out of place, still, even though technically these other boys were his covenant now. He was one of them.  
“Okay,” Caleb frowned, glowering at Reid when he tried to murmur something quiet to Sam. “We have to watch for the Brujahs, but right now, we just need to watch out. Sam, you ready?”  
He hesitated. “...no, but I don't think that's really gonna make a difference, is it?”  
“Not so much,” Reid snickered.  
Sam shrugged. “As ready as I ever will be, then.”  
“Good.” Caleb glanced at Pogue. “I need you to monitor the area, I don't want anyone catching us by - “  
“Surprise.”  
All five of the Haxons spun to gape at the new voice.  
There were three adults standing on the edge of the clearing – one a fairly short man with platinum blond hair and a long black leather duster, a dark haired woman with wide and dreamy eyes, and an angry looking man with dark hair and broad shoulders. They looked completely out of place in the woods, but at least one of them was easily recognizable to Sam. “Dad!”  
“Come here, Sam.” John Winchester said firmly, fists clenched tightly by his sides.  
Sam stepped off of the stone, completely freaked out – but very used to following his father's orders, even when his whole world had been turned upside down.  
“Sam!” Reid cried, darting after him to grab his boyfriend's arm. “Don't.”  
“You son of a Haxon bitch,” John snarled, baring his teeth. “Get yer hands off my son.”  
“Reid... it's my dad,” he glanced at him.  
“No... not anymore it's not.” He said, eyes flickering with flames, which raced across his eyes, and filled his whole eye with black. “Come on... you have to be able to feel that. Your father's heart's not beating.”  
Sam's brows furrowed, glancing back at his father.  
“Give me my son!” John roared – and his face shifted, eyes flaring yellow, face becoming more animalistic and unnatural, teeth seeming to grow, like all of his teeth had been broken and shattered.  
“Oh my god!” Sam bolted backwards into Reid's chest, stunned. “Holy shit...”  
Pogue marched forward, eyes as black as the blond Haxon's, throwing up his hands as the trees started to move, a vicious wind whipping through the branches, like the brewing of a tornado. “Brujahs are unwelcome here. Go.”  
“I am not leaving my son with you!” The eldest Winchester snarled.  
“Look... boys... boys... boys...” Spike stepped forward, holding out his hands, grinning. “We can talk. We can negotiate, maybe. Who says we have to fight?”  
“You son of a – you said we were getting my son from them.” John growled at Spike.  
“We are.” He drawled. “But he's not exactly a kidnap victim, parrot.”  
“What...?”  
“I'm sorry, dad,” Sam said, softly, but he was still holding tight to Reid, and he wasn't moving any closer to his father.  
“Sorry for what?!”  
He swallowed, and focused, letting his eyes flare black. And winced, when his father let out a cry of horror. “...I'm not human either, dad. We're both... we're both vampires, I guess.”  
“You fucking Haxons!” John roared, launching himself forward, slamming into Pogue. The Haxon cried out, eyes flaring harder as he shoved back at John, his own animal-like teeth growing as he met the Brujah's attack force for force. “You fucking turned my son into one of you!” He howled.  
“Haxons are born,” Pogue snarled, through a mouthful of fangs.  
“No son of mine is a vampire!”  
“Bullshit.”  
No one, including the already party-crashing Brujahs, had apparently expected this interruption. Every Haxon, every Brujah spun to face the interruption – which was Xander and Dean, standing just inside the tree line. Dean had been the one that had spoke, and he took a step forward, the colours and pupil of his eye almost seeming to disappear as his eyes faded into white. “Both of your sons are vampires, dad. Sammy's a Haxon. And I’m a Nightshade.”  
“No!” Caleb gasped, shocked.  
“Sorry, babe.” He shrugged, quietly. “Came as a surprise to me, too.”  
“Not possible,” John snarled. “That's not fucking possible...”  
“It is.” Drusilla sang, laughing, stepping forward, almost dancing into the room. “It is, it is... my beautiful boys... my beautiful stupid sons... all my little lost boys. Come on now, no quarreling... mumsy doesn't like when her sons argue...”  
The ground around her suddenly arched up, creating an earth like wall that reached almost to her waist.  
“Oh, my Tyler...” Drusilla giggled, glancing over at the teenager, whose palms were pressed hard against the grass in the centre of the circle, eyes black. “Silly little boy. Don't you know we won't war anymore, after this? Our family will rule the vampires.”  
“Bitch, we ain't rulin' nothing with you.” Xander smirked, eyes falling white.  
Spike pointed at him. “Oh, I want the Nightshade.”  
He grinned, needle teeth sliding over his regular human ones, and moved closer, looking entirely diabolical. “Oh hell yes... come at me, you bitch.”  
Eyes flaring yellow, face shifting, Spike roared with a thirst for violence as he raced forward.  
John took advantage of that moment, and slammed into Pogue again, hitting the teenager with enough force that the young Haxon had to spit out blood. He snarled, and slammed back into the Brujah, at this point, just wanting to tear the man open.  
“No, fuck, dad!” Sam howled. “Stop it!”  
Panic was bubbling up his throat, a scrabbling sort of desperate monster that was clawing at his heart. Something was happening, not just his brother helping a bald man fight a Brujah, not just his friend fighting his father with a desperate fury, and he couldn't quite seem to remember what it was until it actually happened.  
“Yes!” Drusilla cried eagerly, clapping her hands.  
The ground moved under them, like a stilted earthquake, then the whole sky lit up with flames, a crimson splash of burning that consumed the whole of the firmament, licking brighter and almost blue white at the edges.  
Every eye turned skyward, shocked, then a deep, pain filled scream was ripped from Sam's throat.  
His feet actually left the ground, floating up into the centre of the circle, which was more, now, than just the five Haxons it had been meant to be. It looked like some kind of religious gathering, almost, three enemy races drawn together by hatred, and now somehow drawn together by this boy, the youngest son of a hunter and a Brujah, the young brother of a Nightshade, the lover of a Haxon. He rose maybe ten feet in the air, howling pain, arms stretched out like a crucifixion, before the flames struck him. It was like a pillar of fire, slamming down from the sky to consume him.

“Sam!” Dean howled, horrified.  
His brother's fingers scrambled at the sky, flames licking at his clothes, his hair, until suddenly the flames seemed to absorb him, and the pillar of fire disappeared. For just a moment, it seemed that Sam was gone, consumed by the flames, until there was a flash of fire on the ground, and abruptly seemed to solidify, becoming a naked Sam, on his knees.  
He gasped, breathlessly, and slumped forward, palms on the grass. “Oh...”  
The battle, as far as the Winchesters were concerned, was over.  
Dean bolted forward to crouch beside his brother, taking his little brother's jaw in his hands, lifting his head so that black eyes met white, and demanded, “Are you all right? Look at me, Sammy, are you okay?”  
He nodded, panting. “Yeah... shit, that was somethin', huh?”  
John tugged his leather jacket off, draping it around his son's shoulders before crouching beside Dean. “You're sure, Sam?”  
“Mm... yeah... I’m fine, dad... it was just my ascension...”  
“Yeah, well...” He tugged Sam into his chest, stroking his hair. “Don't scare me like that again.”  
“...only ascend once. Eighteenth birthday.” He murmured, eyes falling shut as he relaxed, finally. It was like he'd been building himself up for this moment, and the second it was over, all of that adrenaline left his body – quickly.  
“Oh yeah.” Dean laughed, breathlessly. “Happy birthday, kiddo.”

\---

The First House had probably never had such a strange group in it, before. For centuries, ever since the Putnum, Parry, Simms, Garwin, and Danvers families had come to the New World from England, it had been a stronghold for Haxons, a way to keep the Brujahs and the Nightshades out.  
Now, in the very depths of the building, in the safest place itself, sat enemies, like a council of war leaders, trying for peace.  
Spike and Drusilla looked entirely too pleased – after all, wasn't this their plan? This was what they wanted. Across the circle from them, four of the five members of the Covenant watched them warily, not sure how they felt about this invasion on their sanctuary. Xander was leaning on their bookcases, instead of sitting, but wasn't threatening, for once. He was just... considering.  
And the Winchesters sat together, Sam tight between his father and his brother, who were both continually checking him, like they thought he wasn't actually all right.  
“I still don't think we need an actual alliance.” Reid rolled his eyes. “What, writing it down? Some stupid treaty to say 'we're gonna rule the world together'? I mean, what is this, Lord of the Rings?”  
“I don't remember anyone signing any treaties in Lord of the Rings,” Tyler smirked slightly.  
“Oh shut up, baby boy,” he muttered, grumbling.  
“Look.” Spike leaned forward. “You've got a good thing going here, guys. You're safe, got donors, got money... s'pretty good. Me and Dru.... we could stand a little of that – and we got enough influence with the other clans that we'd be able to keep the other Brujahs away. And the Nightshades?” He snorted. “There are two of you. That's it. There ain't any more. You two need a safe place to get some strength up, get some forces, then go out and find a few more. Maybe knock up a few chicks, have a few Nightshade babies. Ye need time and strength. All three groups, we can get what we need. We can make a good thing, here.”  
“So you want us to make a deal with the devil.” Xander crossed his arms, frowning.  
“That's one way to look at it.” Spike shrugged. “Hell, lookit the Winchesters. Three vampire races, in one family. It's like a damn sign or something.”  
“Our own unholy trinity,” Drusilla giggled.  
“And really,” the platinum blond vampire smirked. “You Haxons are the ones who are all about signin' in the devil's book.”  
Caleb sighed, and looked over at the others. “...I'll sign.”  
“Caleb...” Pogue murmured, brows furrowed.  
“I'll sign, Pogue. Remember what happened with Chase?” He looked away at the bookcase, and the Book of Damnation slid off of the shelf, sweeping through the air to land on the altar between them, flipping through the pages. “Honestly... I’d like to have more help around here. Just in case.”  
“The asshole's right.” Xander shook his head. “Dean and I have a lot of work to do. I’ll sign.”  
The Book fell open, heavily, and ink spread across the pages.  
May 2, 2001.  
A drawing, pen and ink, scrawled across the page, a posed scene even though this group had never posed together, the Winchester family in the centre of the group, with Brujahs and Nightshade flanking on one side, the Haxons on the other.  
And thus the Triumvirate was formed, the ink wrote. And the rule of the Triumvirate began.


End file.
